Kerry Washington Compares UnPrisoned’s Paige To Scandal’s Olivia Pope: “She’s Crazier!”

Paige Alexander is fine. The main character of Hulu’s UnPrisoned, played by Kerry Washington, is a single mother now living with her teen son (Faly Rakotohavana) and her dad (Delroy Lindo) who is fresh out of prison. In Season 1, she also started dating her dad’s parole officer (Marque Richardson). It’s a complicated situation, but she’s fine. Of course, “FINE” according to Paige stands for Fucked Up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional. That acronym accurately sums up Paige, but it could easily be used for another iconic Washington role: Scandal’s Olivia Pope. The similarities between Paige and Olivia pretty much stop at their propensity for pretending to be OK when the skies are falling around them (one is a struggling therapist whose life is a mess, the other is, well… Olivia Pope), but when it comes to carving out groundbreaking spaces in television for Black women, the characters could look at each other and sing, “twin, where have you been?” 

While Olivia showed us that Black women on TV could be badass bosses running the literal free world, Paige is showing us that Black women on TV don’t have to be excellent to exist. She’s figuring her shit out in real time, and that’s just as inspiring as running through the fictional White House in a proverbial white hat. It might seem unfair to bring up Scandal when UnPrisoned is such a different show, and when Washington is showing her range by tackling a completely different character, but the actress is the one who brings up Olivia Pope first during our conversation at the Ritz Carlton in South Beach, Miami during ABFF last month. Washington was paired with the show’s creator and author Tracy McMillan (the series is loosely based on her memoir) and the duo didn’t shy away from the comparisons, but also were quick to highlight how UnPrisoned is groundbreaking in its own right. In Season 2 (now streaming on Hulu), Paige and her family head to therapy — together — to talk through their issues and try to break generational curses. It’s rare to see Black families on TV, period, but one that chooses to go to therapy and untangle their mess through talking and vulnerability? That’s where UnPrisoned goes from a fun, comedic showcase of two of our brightest actors, Delroy Lindo and Kerry Washington, to something special, a magical example of the heartwarming power of communal healing and familial bonds. 

Here, Washington and McMillan talk UnPrisoned Season 2 (no spoilers), the feedback they’ve received from people with incarcerated family members, and how Paige is a direct descendant of Diahann Carroll in Julia. 

Tracy McMillan: This is why you do a show like this. To some degree, everyone can relate to what it's like to have some kind of issues in adulthood with your parents. That's just normal. So it's like, well, what do you do then? I think what has been very heartening is that so many people that you don't even know, have dealt with the system in some way. And they don't even talk about it. Some of them have come up to me and said, ‘I've never told anyone until I watched this show.’ Pretty powerful. 

Kerry Washington: When we were at another film festival, we did four sit down interviews for season1, and three out of four of the journalists we spoke to all had a parent who was incarcerated. And they were also three different races. It was a Black family, an Asian family and a Latin family. So you realize this particular story is so [universal]. We are such a Black family on the show and it is a particularly Black experience, but also, this so-called justice system impacts this whole country.

TM: 100%. Absolutely. I was just saying, like, there's a couple moments where I feel like my experience was encapsulated in a way that made me feel like, oh, okay, the thing that the little girl needed to be seen to have somebody understand what was happening. I feel like I've gotten that. 

KW: I think making art can be so tremendously healing, and so can watching it. You know, I think there's such a magic in knowing that we're not alone. Yeah, we do that in real life by sharing our experience and having it reflected in another person. But art allows it to happen on a larger scale. Like we get to scale the eradication, the disappearance of shame, and loneliness.

KW: It's so funny because when Scandal aired, you know, 150 years ago, there was so much talk about how there hadn't been a woman of color as a lead on a network drama in almost 40 years and people talked about the legacy of Get Christie Love! and Julia. There was a lot of talk about Diahann Carroll in Julia. And in some ways I feel like UnPrisoned honors Diahann more than Scandal did. Because Julia was about a single mom, a Black single mom, and she found joy and found love and we loved her. And she was like the first Black woman that people had in their homes in this aspirational, intimate way. I feel like I'm still honoring that legacy of Diahann. 

TM: That's super interesting. I watched Julia as a little girl. And I just put that together right now. I was like six and I would watch Julia and look at her and be like, “wow, she's a nurse. She's so together…” 

KW: Wow. And she’s so pretty. And she's a single mom, but she's okay. It's funny, because I think our show is two shows that we both love. I didn't watch it when it's on but [UnPrisoned is] Julia means Mary Tyler Moore in the tone and the vibe. 

TM: Both shows are about a woman and her whole self. She’s not just the mom. A lot of sitcoms have women who just get to be one thing. Someone else gets to be sexy, and someone else gets to be funny, and someone else gets to be whatever. In this, you get to be all the things.

KW: That’s season 1, girl. Tune in for Season 2! Paige gets to evolve and grow in ways that… It's just different.

KW: That’s so funny. I had a sense when I was [shooting Scandal] that it was magic lightning in a bottle. And I'll love [Olivia Pope] forever. So I don't I don't fault other people for loving her forever, too. 

KW: I am. That's because you’re so trollable!

KW: I think the thing that we're really focused on in season 2 is this idea of leaning into therapy. But leaning into the idea that everybody in this family has some work to do, that everybody needs to get unpleasant, that we're all trying to free ourselves from old habits and old ways of thinking and old behaviors, to be in a loving family right now. So family therapy, being willing to do the work. That's a big theme this season. And we have the incredible John Stamos who plays our family therapist, and he's just like, crazy, funny, hilarious.

TM: I feel like we're really showing the building blocks, because people will be like, Well, how do I heal? Like really how though? If you watch season 2, I feel like we show you how every episode is a piece of that journey and each person, each character, is putting themselves back together in a new way. They're not changing who they are, they're just organizing it in a way that is usually it's just about widening the scope of who you think you are, who you think these other people are, who you think you can be — no matter what your age is, or where you are in life, whether you're the teen, whether you're the son, the mom or the dad, everybody can get freer. Freer.

TM: Put your own mask on first. You can't help otherwise. Families are systems. So any change to the system affects the entire system. You just gotta deal with yourself first. People want to fix the other person.

KW: That’s good. And then ask for help. You don't have to do it alone. You can get somebody to support you like this family in UnPrisoned. You know, I think Paige felt for a long time that because she's a therapist she had to do the fixing. But sometimes you really need that outside support.

KW: Hilarious. 

TM: Heartfelt, honest, real.

KW: That was four. [laughs] 

KW: We are both fucked up, insecure, neurotic and… 

TM: Emotional. The crazy thing is that probably Olivia would know she wasn't fine. And know she was kind of fronting. And Paige would really think she's fine, but also thinks she's not fine, and I think that's fine. 

KW: So maybe she's crazier [laughs].