Even The Shondaland Actors Fear Being Killed Off By Shonda Rhimes

With the shocking midseason finale of How To Get Away With Murder, Shonda Rhimes has proved herself to be nothing if not completely savage. And viewers aren’t the only ones who know it. During a recent interview with Huffington Post for their Build Series, actress Bellamy Young, who plays First Lady and presidential candidate Mellie Grant on Scandal, admitted that she and her family basically live in constant fear of Mellie being killed off. She said “[My mom] is always afraid they’re kicking me off the show. To a degree that it makes me afraid, like, she knows something. She’s like, ‘They’re not writing you off, are they?’ It makes me so worried, because she’s so worried. I’m like, ‘Don’t manifest that!’” But if you think Rhimes is bothered by a little anxiety, you’re wrong. She feeds on the fear of her unsuspecting subjects. Young told HuffPo that none of the cast sees the script until the day before they shoot and Josh Malina, who plays U.S. Attorney General David Rosen, always skips ahead to end to make sure his character is still alive. His theory is that “if [he’s] talking, [he’s] breathing.” We don’t blame you, Malina. You can never be too sure. So imagine his reaction when Rhimes slipped him a fake script in which Rosen dies. The entire cast was in on it, too. “She wrote us all an email, she’s like, ‘Do you think I’m a terrible person if I ...’ And we’re like, ‘You should totally do that,’” Young recalled. “...But she didn’t think to put it in everybody’s script, so she only put it in Malina’s. So, he sat down and did his thing and you see his whole body drop. And he turned to Scott [Foley], who was next to him, and he’s like, ‘Man, I think I die.’ And Scott was like, ‘That’s rough, man.’ No compassion at all! And then I was on the other side of him and he grabbed my script and he looked in the back and it wasn’t in there and he knew it was a joke.” But if Malina is smart, he won’t get too comfortable. Rhimes is ruthless and untrustworthy.