The actor Tony Goldwyn says the real Washington, D.C. is more outrageous than on his show “Scandal.”
Saturday, Goldwyn who plays President Fitzgerald Grant on the TV drama, was in town for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. He talked to Variety about the connection between Hollywood and D.C.
“There is this weird co-fascination between Hollywood and Washington,” he said. “The reality [of Washington] is far more outrageous than ‘Scandal.’ At least given this presidential campaign.”
The actor says it’s the people and friends he’s made in D.C., naming one of Obama’s economic advisor’s Gene Sperling, that make playing the president easy.
“It is quite helpful,” Goldwyn said. “It gives you a sense of what the reality is.”
“I have in my imagination the world that I try to inhabit, but just walking through the West Wing, or meeting people who actually work there, or talking policy with people who actually do that, helps me fill in the gaps when I’m standing in Sunset Gower Studios pretending to be the president,” he added.
“So I have a feeling of what the actual world is,” Goldwyn said. “Not that our world is terribly realistic.”