EP. S2E31 — The Scandal Episode w/ Katie Lowes & Guillermo Diaz

Ashley Ray [00:00:18] Welcome back to TV, I Say with Ashley Ray. I am so excited. I’m so excited for you listeners because I promised you a Scandal episode. You know my connection to Scandal. One of the first shows I reviewed for The A.V. Club. One of my first TV loves. The show that made me want to write TV. So, my guests today–Katie Lowes and Guillermo Diaz–you probably know them as Quinn Perkins and Huck, our dream duo from Scandal. I am so happy to have you here.

Katie Lowes [00:00:50] We’re happy to be here.

Guillermo Diaz [00:00:51] Thanks for having us.

Ashley Ray [00:00:52] They have just started a new podcast, Unpacking the Toolbox. It is a Scandal rewatch podcast. How is it going? Is it fun to have this mini Scandal reunion?

Guillermo Diaz [00:01:02] It’s so much fun.

Katie Lowes [00:01:04] It’s been a blast. I can’t even… We just had no idea. We had been talking for a year or more even about hosting a rewatch podcast. You know, I was really seeing that that was a trend happening. I was listening to a lot of rewatch podcasts, and I know the gladiators are out there, still super strong, and looking for material and things to dive into. And I was like, “What are we doing? Of course, I want to host it with G.” He’s my favorite person on the planet, and I just want to spend the most time with them as possible. So, I was worried if he was going to be in or out.

Guillermo Diaz [00:01:35] I was so in.

Katie Lowes [00:01:39] It wasn’t even a thing, which was great. And then our only concern was we knew it would be hilarious. We knew we’d have a great time. It’s weird when you spend the amount of hours that we have logged together over the years and years of 80-hour workweeks on Scandal at 5:00 a.m. on Mondays and 4:00 a.m. on Friday nights. And we still have so much to talk about. We make each other laugh like crazy. But the biggest shock of this whole thing–and you’re going to get this, Ashley–is we didn’t know how good the show was. When the show was on, we were so worried about shooting it the next day. We were live tweeting with the fans. We were never just sitting back and enjoying it.

Guillermo Diaz [00:02:24] We were so close to it, too. I remember sometimes watching episodes and being like, “I messed up that line,” or “I wish I would have done it this way.” We were too close to it. And I didn’t have… I couldn’t enjoy it.

Ashley Ray [00:02:35] I don’t even know what you’re saying because literally every moment Huck was on the show was perfect.

Guillermo Diaz [00:02:44] Oh, thank you. Now that I’ve rewatched it, I’m like, “It’s perfect. I love it.”

Katie Lowes [00:02:50] We are fanning out.

Guillermo Diaz [00:02:50] Can we curse on this podcast?

Ashley Ray [00:02:53] Yeah.

Guillermo Diaz [00:02:53] This shit is good.

Katie Lowes [00:02:54] This shit is so, so good. And I get it now. We are fans. It’s ten years since the pilot has aired, so it’s, like, sort of the perfect amount of time. You know, G and I are watching it. First of all, we’re totally different people. We don’t remember a lot of it. Like, Quinn will come in a scene, and I’m like, “What? Quinn’s in this? Like, I don’t remember this. This is crazy.”

Ashley Ray [00:03:17] So much happened some seasons.

Katie Lowes [00:03:19] And then the White House was, like, a whole half of the show that Huck and Quinn were barely in.

Ashley Ray [00:03:24] Really weren’t involved in.

Katie Lowes [00:03:26] Like, that’s a whole thing, too, that I get to sit back and watch. And so, it’s really been such a gift. And I got to say, like, I’m watching every show right now that is the hot talk around town–that’s being nominated for things–and all this. And I am telling you Scandal is just as good and if not–

Guillermo Diaz [00:03:45] Rocks it better.

Katie Lowes [00:03:46] I’m like, “This show holds up.” The work is amazing. The writing that Shonda Rhimes was doing was insane.

Ashley Ray [00:03:54] Some of her best. And yeah, I think Grey’s Anatomy kind of has had a revival because they put the old episodes on Netflix. Scandal hasn’t had that moment yet. I think it’s going to happen. It’s on Hulu.

Katie Lowes [00:04:05] People need to go back. If you’ve watched it before, do yourself such a gift and get into it again with friends who haven’t seen it. And then you can watch it in tandem with this podcast because we have every single lead on it.

Ashley Ray [00:04:21] Are you starting from Season One, Ep One?

Guillermo Diaz [00:04:24] Yeah. This first season of Unpacking the Toolbox is Season One and Season Two of Scandal. So, it’s about 30 episodes.

Ashley Ray [00:04:30] Yeah, which was just life changing television. It’s hard to describe what it was like–that first episode of Scandal. I remember where I was.

Guillermo Diaz [00:04:38] Really?

Ashley Ray [00:04:39] Oh, yeah. I remember being like, “This is a show.” Like, I immediately knew I’m never missing an episode of this. I will be with everyone tweeting. For you, what was it like when you…? Did you know this show was going to blow up? Were you just kind of like, “Let’s see what happens with this ABC drama”?

Katie Lowes [00:04:55] I mean, for me, I don’t know. Guillermo probably feels differently because he was far more of a seasoned, accomplished actor than I was when I started this.

Guillermo Diaz [00:05:02] Huge.

Ashley Ray [00:05:04] A lot of people submitted questions about Half Baked and about Weeds.

Katie Lowes [00:05:10] He’s the most famous. I mean, try walking down the street with Guillermo, and try having someone not hand him a joint. Everyone’s like, “That’s the guy from Half Baked! That’s the guy from Weeds!” Every turn, I was like, “Either I’m getting fired or this show is not going to continue on.” Do you know what I mean? Like, “Either it won’t get picked up for pilot or we won’t make it past the first season, or we will get canceled halfway through.” It’s so hard to get a show on the air. And it is so hard for a show to be successful. It wasn’t until the middle of Season Two… And Tony and I talk about this when he comes on the podcast. He has already been a guest. We’ve already had so many great people. You guys have to listen. But I was remembering the middle of Season Two, we walked into some press event, and two things happened. One, he walked in, and women started screaming as if someone had been killed or something. I was like, “Oh my God. I’m afraid for my life. What’s happening?”

Guillermo Diaz [00:06:07] Like the actual president had just walked in.

Katie Lowes [00:06:08] Everyone’s.

Ashley Ray [00:06:10] Fitzmania took over the country.

Katie Lowes [00:06:12] I was like, “What is happening? This is insane.” And then that same night we were walking down the carpet and some lovely press journalist interviewer was like, “What does it feel like to be on a hit show?” And I remember turning to everyone else and being like, “Are we? Is this a hit show?” I didn’t know.

Ashley Ray [00:06:29] Yeah.

Katie Lowes [00:06:30] So it was a real slow burn for me. What about you, G?

Guillermo Diaz [00:06:32] I feel what kept us honest and what kept us humble is that–we talk about this on the podcast, too–every season I never felt like, “Oh, yeah. We’re getting picked up. We were a shoo-in.” Every season, we were all like, “Oh my God, we hope we get picked up.” We just knew that it was so special because we enjoyed being around each other so much and the material was so stellar. We knew we were in something really, really special and really good. But I feel like we never got cocky about it, you know what I mean?

Katie Lowes [00:07:02] It was a group of actors that were, like, so grateful to have jobs.

Ashley Ray [00:07:07] It was a cast that people weren’t familiar with. Like, I loved Kerry Washington.

Katie Lowes [00:07:12] Yeah, but when Kerry booked it, I called my mom and they were like, “Who?” And I was like, “You know, the wife from Ray and, like, The Last King of Scotland.” But she wasn’t, like, on the covers of magazines. Yeah, she wasn’t a household name. And also–we talk about this in the first episode of the podcast–but Shonda Rhimes said, you know, she had a no asshole policy on our show, where she called everyone’s previous two bosses to vouch for them.  And so, I think that also helped.

Ashley Ray [00:07:39] I can maybe understand why that’s a policy she would develop.

Katie Lowes [00:07:44] I think we’re just so grateful to have gigs because that’s, like, kind of who we were that we were never like, “Oh, this is a hit show. Like, we’re good. We’re floating.” We were so determined to just make a good product.

Ashley Ray [00:08:02] Yeah, and you did. It’s, again, just an amazing, amazing show.

Katie Lowes [00:08:06] We agree with you now!

Ashley Ray [00:08:09] Like, I mean, reviewing it, it just reached a point where I was like, “What am I grading here? A, A, A. Let’s talk about what happened. What are the theories?”

Katie Lowes [00:08:19] Again, I’m watching every show on television right now, and I’m watching Scandal. And I think what Kerry Washington and Shonda Rhimes built as Olivia Pope is one of the most incredible female characters in recent history ever.

Ashley Ray [00:08:32] One of the strongest protagonists.

Katie Lowes [00:08:35] She is unbelievable.

Ashley Ray [00:08:37] People still refer to Olivia Pope. Anytime there’s a media scandal–everything with Good Morning America–people are like, “They need Olivia Pope. She’d fix it. Fix it.” Like, you know, it’s that strong. So, one of the questions submitted… Quinn and Huck’s relationship as it developed in the show–was that something you saw coming?

Guillermo Diaz [00:08:55] Not at all. We didn’t see a lot coming, right? We would find out what that episode was going to be–what was happening with our characters–at the table read. You know, we weren’t privy to any, you know, information before that. And we had no idea that we were going to hook up–Quinn was going to turn into this baby Huck person.

Katie Lowes [00:09:17] You were going to take me under your wing. No clue! None.

Guillermo Diaz [00:09:21] And then it happened, and we freaking loved it. I mean, we had a blast.

Ashley Ray [00:09:27] What was it like finding that chemistry? Obviously, the torture scene is so intimate.

Katie Lowes [00:09:34] I still have that duct tape bra. You know, I got to bring that out for a podcast. Yeah. Jeff Probst gave me my duct tape bra because all I wore the day that Quinn is on Huck’s mat getting tortured with the toolbox was a pair of nude underwear, so it looked like I was naked. And they had made it look like my arms were duct taped to my chest. So, it was like a bra made out of duct tape–which I still have and everybody signed that day–which is so sweet.

Guillermo Diaz [00:10:03] That is cool.

Katie Lowes [00:10:04] I think that… God, it was such a gift. That whole show, we never knew what was coming. What was so cool was a lot of time in episodic television whatever your character comes in as is how they stick around for seven years. You never see characters really make changes or do something out of character. Like, it’s sort of formulaic in that way. And what’s so amazing about Shonda’s writing is, you know, Quinn–I feel like over seven years I’d be like, “What the hell am I going to be doing next?”

Ashley Ray [00:10:31] Quinn is not the same. And Huck–I mean, he becomes this sweet baby angel.

Guillermo Diaz [00:10:36] I know.

Ashley Ray [00:10:37] You’re just like, “I’m terrified of him.” And then you’re like, “I would tuck him in at night and cradle to sleep.”

Katie Lowes [00:10:42] I really loved him. And he was so damaged.

Ashley Ray [00:10:44] Yeah, so damaged.

Katie Lowes [00:10:46] When we got the script that we were going to hook up, we had a good time.

Guillermo Diaz [00:10:53] We did have a good time. And we’ve said this a million times, but Debbie Allen directed that episode when you see Huck and Quinn sort of–

Katie Lowes [00:11:00] On the car for the first time.

Guillermo Diaz [00:11:01] Not “sort of.” Have sex on top of a car.

Katie Lowes [00:11:02] I rip my underwear. I slap you. And I think you spit on me.

Ashley Ray [00:11:08] Was that in the script?

Guillermo Diaz [00:11:11] No! It just happened. We were just in it. And all of a sudden, you know, we break from a kiss, and I spit on your neck. And I lick it. I think afterwards, I was like, “Katie, I’m sorry.” And she was like, “I love it!”

Katie Lowes [00:11:25] Oh, God. We had a lot of conversations leading up to it, like, because we were so close about, like, “Yo.” But we’re also so real. So, we were both like, “This has got to be a lot of tongue.” It was so, like, straight up. I’m talking, like, from an actor perspective. We were just like, “You can’t do this movie star bullshit kind of kissing. These people are insane.”

Ashley Ray [00:11:50] Insane. That’s I think the moment when you realize, like, “Oh, Quinn is not so normal.”

Katie Lowes [00:11:54] No, what she likes is… Wow.

Guillermo Diaz [00:11:59] Yeah. And also, the difference between Quinn in Huck was that Quinn really enjoyed it. Like, she happily enjoyed it. Huck enjoyed it, but he was…

Katie Lowes [00:12:06] Tortured about it. Yeah.

Ashley Ray [00:12:08] He doesn’t think he deserves that. He doesn’t deserve love.

Guillermo Diaz [00:12:11] Totally. She always had a big smile on her face when she was, like, drilling Billy Chambers or stabbing the body. She was like, “This is great!”

Ashley Ray [00:12:18] “This is fun!”

Katie Lowes [00:12:20] I’m so not like that. It’s so crazy. It’s like you’re talking about another person. But we had a really… I mean, we trusted each other. It was very intimate. And we had a lot of like, “Let’s just go for it. I feel safe. He felt safe.”

Ashley Ray [00:12:34] It takes a special environment to build that on set.

Guillermo Diaz [00:12:37] And I know her husband, Adam. She knows my boyfriend, Mikey. Like, we’re all so close. We traveled together. We had gone to Israel together. You know, we had a history and a past.

Ashley Ray [00:12:48] Quinn and her family vacations.

Katie Lowes [00:12:51] And my husband could not have been more thrilled. My husband was like, “Oh my God. Yay!” It was such a great setup.

Guillermo Diaz [00:12:58] I bet if I was straight, he’d be like, “Uh…”

Katie Lowes [00:13:00] Yeah, no. He’d be terrified.

Guillermo Diaz [00:13:02] “You’re going to use tongue?”

Katie Lowes [00:13:03] He’d be terrified. I would be terrified.

Ashley Ray [00:13:07] The chemistry–just right there.

Katie Lowes [00:13:10] Easy.

Ashley Ray [00:13:17] So the listeners want to know your favorite Scandal twist, but I want to bring mine up so you can have some time to think about it. My favorite Scandal twist is when Olivia Pope beats the vice president to death while he’s in a wheelchair with a chair. I need to know–when you read that at the table read, what was your reaction? This is also Olivia’s first major killing murder that she does by her own hand.

Guillermo Diaz [00:13:51] And brutally. Not just, like, you know, she gave him some poison. She beats him with a chair.

Ashley Ray [00:13:56] With a chair while he’s in a wheelchair.

Katie Lowes [00:13:59] And you know the fans still love her.

Ashley Ray [00:14:00] And you still love her.

Katie Lowes [00:14:01] I sometimes would be like, “Does anyone care that Olivia Pope is a murderer who rigged the election who’s, like, screwing a married man? Does anyone care?

Ashley Ray [00:14:10] Who murdered probably, like, the person who had the least defenses.

Katie Lowes [00:14:13] Yeah, but he’s like, “Who cares?”

Ashley Ray [00:14:15] He couldn’t really do anything.

Katie Lowes [00:14:20] She could do no wrong. She could do no wrong. We used to live in fear at the table reads. I’m like, “Oh no. If you’re against Olivia–if your character is against Olivia–get ready for the Twitter or social media barrage of hate that is about to come your way. And if your character is with Olivia–on Olivia’s side, whether that’s morally right or not–you’re all good to go.” I think my favorite plot twist is definitely Dad. I have such, like, love for the memories behind it and where we all were at the table read when he said it. And Joe Morton had been sort of floating around as a guest star for months and months and months, and we didn’t know what the hell he was doing there. And it never came across my mind that he was her dad. And then we got to do a live reading of that script in front of thousands of people, I think at the Coda or at a huge, huge theater. And it was before it had aired, so the audience didn’t know either. And we did a live reading, and I’m a theatre nerd, so I love having an audience. But we did a live theater reading, and Joe Morton said, “Dad.” And the entire audience stood up, roaring, screaming, deafening. And we all stood up, screaming, and pointing at them. And it was just so amazing.

Ashley Ray [00:15:31] And that’s what I was doing in my living room when I watched. It’s one of those moments where you don’t forget where you were, like in How to Get Away with Murder when she’s like, “Why is your penis on a dead girl’s phone?” It’s like one of those lines where you’re just like, “I know where I was.” We all were like, “Oh, this show.”

Katie Lowes [00:15:49] What is yours?

Guillermo Diaz [00:15:50] For me, it was when Fitz suffocates Verna.

Ashley Ray [00:15:53] Yeah.

Guillermo Diaz [00:15:54] That was so unexpected.

Ashley Ray [00:15:56] Yeah.

Katie Lowes [00:15:57] And of course, you would like that because you’re a huge horror movie guy.

Guillermo Diaz [00:15:59] I love it. I love it.

Ashley Ray [00:16:01] But it was really scary because that’s when I was like, “Oh, Fitz’s, like, not good.”

Guillermo Diaz [00:16:06] He’s one of us.

Ashley Ray [00:16:07] Like, I wanted to believe that he’s this good boy who’s being a puppet. But no.

Katie Lowes [00:16:12] Watching it back right now, one of my favorite twists is when the president gets shot.

Ashley Ray [00:16:17] Oh yeah.

Katie Lowes [00:16:18] Because I can’t believe how brave the writers were on this show.

Ashley Ray [00:16:23] I remember being like, “Are they really doing this?”

Katie Lowes [00:16:25] “We’re going that far this early on? No one’s afraid of, like, burning through stories too fast?

Ashley Ray [00:16:32] “Where are we going? What?”

Katie Lowes [00:16:33] “How could we be shooting the president? We’ve done 13 episodes of the show or whatever it was.” And it was done so well and so scarily, and it was so amazing. So, watching it back, I was like, “Oh my God. This show is off the freaking track.”

Ashley Ray [00:16:48] Even rewatching–knowing it’s coming–I’m still like, “They just shot him.” And so obviously a big question that everybody wants to know, personally, Fitz or Jake? You probably get this all the time.

Guillermo Diaz [00:17:02] I’m a Fitz guy for sure.

Katie Lowes [00:17:04] And I’m a Jake guy.

Ashley Ray [00:17:04] I’m a Jake.

Guillermo Diaz [00:17:05] Oh! You are?

Ashley Ray [00:17:05] Yes! Come on.

Katie Lowes [00:17:09] I’ve always been a Jake guy. Look, watching it back, I do gotta say, the Olivia-Fitz chemistry and steaminess is astronomical.

Ashley Ray [00:17:20] Yeah. Was it like that off set, too?

Katie Lowes [00:17:22] No!

Guillermo Diaz [00:17:25] They’re like two political nerds.

Katie Lowes [00:17:27] Yes! I mean, they don’t have swag like that.

Guillermo Diaz [00:17:32] They’re so nerdy, too.

Ashley Ray [00:17:39] They’re just spilling coffee on themselves, and everyone’s like, “Oh my gosh. Sexual chemistry.”

Katie Lowes [00:17:42] And they have such high executive functioning. Like, they’re always doing a million things at once. Kerry has her hands in 8,000 pies. And so, they direct and they write and they produce and they’re activists and they’re all this stuff. So, I just I can’t believe what they were doing onscreen. And it was not like that in real life.

Ashley Ray [00:18:00] Because they must have known each other, like…

Katie Lowes [00:18:04] And you’ll learn on the podcast their entire history and how they met and what it was like because I get all into that. I’m like, “How has this chemistry been like this? How did you make it? Tell me about your process. Did you ever meet?” So, listen to that episode of the podcast and you’ll find out from Kerry’s mouth and Tony’s mouth himself.

Ashley Ray [00:18:20] Yes.

Katie Lowes [00:18:21] But I’m Team Jake just because I love an underdog. And I can’t get over that Fitz is, like, married. It’s a big red flag.

Ashley Ray [00:18:31] It was like, “If he’s going to cheat on Millie, he’s going to cheat on you, too, Olivia. You’re not safe.”

Guillermo Diaz [00:18:39] That’s okay. I don’t care. I don’t mind that he’s married. She’s fucking around, too, isn’t she?

Ashley Ray [00:18:46] Yeah. Yeah, she’s sleeping with the vice president.

Katie Lowes [00:18:49] Poor Scott Foley has been put just in, like, love triangles–since you’re the TV expert–since the beginning of time. Felicity–it’s him, Scott Speedman, and Felicity.

Ashley Ray [00:19:02] In Grey’s Anatomy he’s in a love triangle.

Katie Lowes [00:19:06] I don’t remember what his Dawson’s Creek role was.

Ashley Ray [00:19:07] Probably a love triangle. They never choose him. And then he always, like, turns kind of evil. And it’s like, “Just for once, let him get the girl.”

Guillermo Diaz [00:19:18] I love Scott Foley, too.

Katie Lowes [00:19:19] Oh, he’s an absolute dream. He’s a dreamboat of a person.

Guillermo Diaz [00:19:24] The fart king of TV.

Katie Lowes [00:19:25] You’ll also learn he doesn’t actually fart, so people can still find him sexy. Well, maybe he does, but we all do. Look, we spend a lot of hours together, people. He’s a professional at making fart sounds with his mouth. And he does it before shooting, so he’ll be like, “Rolling… Speed… Action.”

Guillermo Diaz [00:19:45] And now we’ve all started doing that.

Katie Lowes [00:19:48] Now, I’m on other sets and I’m doing it.

Ashley Ray [00:19:49] And you’re doing it.

Katie Lowes [00:19:51] All day long.

Ashley Ray [00:19:51] It’s like the Foley method now. That’s how you get him to care.

Katie Lowes [00:19:54] See these are the little tidbits you’ll get on the podcast that you didn’t know.

Ashley Ray [00:19:58] It does make me laugh to think of him about to do some serious scene where he’s trying to save Olivia, and then he’s just making fart noises.

Katie Lowes [00:20:04] That’s all he does. I mean, you’ll also get from the podcast, the White House side was, like, very serious about acting. And the OPA side was too when we had really serious stuff to do. Like, obviously Huck–Guillermo–had huge stuff in 752 and, like, had to go to some really, really dark places. But whenever OPA’s, like, working the case or, you know, putting the case up on the board and going through all this stuff, we were the silliest bunch of insane… People used to come over and direct and just be like, “It was like herding cats.” No one’s listening to anybody. We’re all singing and dancing–choreography with Columbus Short. Like, it was insane.

Ashley Ray [00:20:44] I mean, I feel like that was the more fun side of the show.

Katie Lowes [00:20:46] Oh, yeah. You don’t want to hang out in the White House.

Ashley Ray [00:20:49] Yeah, the White House was like, “Okay. We’re serious.” But I was the episode of the week girl. I was like, “Give me the cases.” I love the kind of ripped from the headlines aspect.

Katie Lowes [00:20:59] I do, too. And the music they would put with it–it was so fun.

Ashley Ray [00:21:01] It was great. And I did love that eventually, the show did become very political. It started to take on, you know, important themes. What was that kind of twist like for you–seeing it go from, “Okay, this isn’t just an ABC soapy drama. This show is doing something different. It really is changing the landscape of TV.”

Katie Lowes [00:21:20] I mean, I felt like we were a part of something hugely important from the jump only because–and Kerry talks about it on the podcast episode–her being the first Black woman as a lead of a network drama in 37 years at the time we made it felt big. And also, for her, she says on the podcast, it had to succeed because it would have been another 37 years…

Ashley Ray [00:21:42] Another 37 years. Yeah.

Katie Lowes [00:21:44] So that felt really amazing. And then as we got into it and it was becoming a thing, I started to see–we all started to see–how Shonda was putting in, like, huge things. I mean, that Lawn Chair episode with Courtney B. Vance–we’re talking about a police shooting. And we’re talking about rape in the military in episodes. We’re talking about Olivia having an abortion. Like, there were huge… I was like, “Okay, Shonda. I see what you’re doing. You are working massively polarizing, huge, hot button topics into network television, hidden underneath this chemistry and these cases and the sexiness and the outfits and the gloves and the Prada bags.”

Ashley Ray [00:22:29] And even the big twist when it’s like, “Dad,” it’s not just that he’s there and he’s evil and he’s her dad. It’s also he’s reminding her of the double standards she faces as a Black woman.

Katie Lowes [00:22:38] Oh my God! I’ll never forget that line. “You have twice as hard to get half as much.”

Guillermo Diaz [00:22:42] Oh my God.

Katie Lowes [00:22:44] It’s one of the things I thought about. Honestly and embarrassingly–all of the things that have been happening the past few years–I mean, that was the first time I had ever heard that as a white woman.

Ashley Ray [00:22:55] So many people… It was, like, this thing that people talked about. And then as a culture critic and TV critic at the time, people really were examining Black shows that way. You know, people would be like, “It’s funny,” or “It’s a drama.” But this was a show where I was like, “No, there’s themes. We should be writing about it. We should be having episodic reviews.” And finally, it, like, pushed… All these white TV places had to be like, “Okay, yeah, we need Black people to review this show.” It led this charge of just more diversity and criticism where it was like, “You need Black writers who can identify these themes.” The scene that I always think of when Viola Davis comes in and they do the kind of crossover episode–they have the whole hair scene.

Katie Lowes [00:23:36] Oh my God.

Ashley Ray [00:23:36] And there was so much to unpack there.

Katie Lowes [00:23:39] And yeah, how could a white reviewer even know…

Ashley Ray [00:23:46] Finally, it was like Prestige TV was opening up and people were like, “Oh, it’s not just casts that look like Mad Men or The Sopranos. It’s diversity. It’s, you know, these thrilling stories that–yes, there are twists–but there is so much more underneath.”

Katie Lowes [00:24:02] I was so proud. I was like, “I can’t believe I get to be on this.” Like, I just felt like I came from a tiny, tiny part of this huge wheel that really felt important. I mean, did you feel like that?

Guillermo Diaz [00:24:15] Oh my God. Constantly. Well, just the fact that also Shonda cast me, a gay Latino from Washington Heights, playing this trained killer spy. She just gives opportunities to people that aren’t, you know, your sort of typical person that you would cast as this character. Yeah. Oh my God. It felt like we were on a special show for sure. Every day that we were on set felt like we were so lucky to be there. I think that’s also what kept us humble, too.

Ashley Ray [00:24:44] I mean, I knew you from comedies, obviously. And then Huck, I was like, “This is not funny.:

Guillermo Diaz [00:24:50] Yeah, it’s not funny at all.

Ashley Ray [00:24:55] “Where’s the guy I love from Weeds and Half Baked?”

Katie Lowes [00:24:55] He’s so good at comedy. He can do everything.

Ashley Ray [00:25:00] Yeah, you’re amazing at comedy. So, you know, when you got this sort of chance to do something in a drama that was so big, what was that like?

Guillermo Diaz [00:25:10] First of all… Well, I talk about this on the podcast, too–my audition. I was actually mad when I got the script and the sides because I thought, “Oh my God, this character’s so not like me.” He was described as a 50-year-old sort of nebbish man who was obsessed with figurines. And I was like, “Really, guys? I’m never going to get this.” And my people were like, “No, go in. They know you. They want to see you.” And then I read for Shonda and, you know, she just saw me as Huck. She said she didn’t picture him this way at all. But when I went in the room and, you know, gave her my version of this character, she was like, “That’s who it is.” And she talks about the way other characters were cast as well, right? It was a similar situation.

Katie Lowes [00:25:54] Yeah. She just knew. And then she called our previous ex bosses and made sure we weren’t assholes.

Guillermo Diaz [00:26:03] I bet she called Jenji Kohan.

Ashley Ray [00:26:05] Oh, she probably did. She probably did. And Jenji was like, “Oh my God, he’s such a ball on set.”

Katie Lowes [00:26:10] She definitely did. She definitely did.

Ashley Ray [00:26:14] I wish I could hear those conversations.

Guillermo Diaz [00:26:16] I remember Shonda telling me… I was still doing Weeds while I was doing Season Two of Scandal. And either Shonda told me or someone else told me that them two were having conversations about how they were going to make it work because I had to be on the Weeds set and the Scandal set close to the same times of day.

Katie Lowes [00:26:35] I can’t believe you worked with those two titans of women writers in Hollywood.

Ashley Ray [00:26:36] At the same time.

Katie Lowes [00:26:42] That’s unbelievable.

Ashley Ray [00:26:43] Also, my brain is like, “Weeds started so much longer before.” And then I’m like, “Oh, right. Yeah. There was an overlap.”

Guillermo Diaz [00:26:50] Yeah, I was shooting the very ending.

Ashley Ray [00:26:53] The very end of Weeds. That’s TV history. So, another question that the fans had…

Katie Lowes [00:27:03] Thank you fans for writing in questions and for being excited about this.

Guillermo Diaz [00:27:07] We love a question situation.

Katie Lowes [00:27:08] We love a question situation, and we love a fan.

Ashley Ray [00:27:11] They wanted to know what was your favorite crime of the week?

Katie Lowes [00:27:14] Oh my God. You know, there are so many good ones.

Ashley Ray [00:27:19] I would go with dick pic.

Katie Lowes [00:27:22] But I also love… I like the one we just did where David Rosen wakes up with the dead girl.

Guillermo Diaz [00:27:30] That’s a good one.

Ashley Ray [00:27:32] I love that one. Anyone with David Rosen. David was such a fun character

Guillermo Diaz [00:27:39] What about the Lena Dunham one?

Ashley Ray [00:27:39] I loved the Lena Dunham one.

Guillermo Diaz [00:27:41] Do I kill her, or do you?

Ashley Ray [00:27:42] I thought you–

Guillermo Diaz [00:27:43] I kill her. I slice her neck, right?

Katie Lowes [00:27:47] Oh, wait. But I think I’m there.

Ashley Ray [00:27:48] But you’re there.

Guillermo Diaz [00:27:49] Yeah. That was fun because Katie and I were huge fans of Girls.

Ashley Ray [00:27:52] Yeah, this was, like, peak Girls.

Guillermo Diaz [00:27:55] And she was a huge fan of Scandal. Yeah.

Katie Lowes [00:27:57] Her dream was to be on.

Ashley Ray [00:27:59] It was like, for me–I’m a big Girls fan–a huge crossover. And you kind of knew she was going to get killed, so it was like, “How are they going to do it?”

Katie Lowes [00:28:06] Yeah. Yeah. Well, she had to go back to her own job.

Ashley Ray [00:28:09] She was just, like, stopping by.

Katie Lowes [00:28:11] She was awesome to work with. We were so lucky because we got access, I mean, not only to the amazing– I mean, I can’t believe Courtney B. Vance came on the show. But also, we had amazing… Like, Regina King directed episodes.

Guillermo Diaz [00:28:39] She directed a few episodes.

Katie Lowes [00:28:40] Angela Bassett shadow directed a few episodes. Debbie Allen, we talked about, directed episodes. We just had some amazing– Oh my God. Remember? Were you there when Kobe Bryant came to set?

Guillermo Diaz [00:28:50] Yeah, because we had pictures together with him.

Katie Lowes [00:28:52] Yeah, Kobe came.

Guillermo Diaz [00:28:52] And that was the episode that Darby Stanchfield directed, the actress who played Abby.

Katie Lowes [00:28:57] Yeah, she was directing. And Kobe came by and was getting really involved in Hollywood because he had done that short that won the Oscar about basketball. And he was thinking about directing it. So, he was coming by and watching. Oh my gosh. But we just really had that finger on some pulse.

Ashley Ray [00:29:14] I feel like Shonda was really supportive about getting people from the show behind the camera. You know, in the final season, I believe Kerry directed the penultimate episode. Yeah.

Katie Lowes [00:29:24] She was amazing.

Ashley Ray [00:29:25] Yeah, it was amazing.

Katie Lowes [00:29:27] There is nothing she can’t do. It’s annoying. Like, truly. And also, she looks incredible. There’s nothing she can’t do.

Ashley Ray [00:29:37] There’s one scene in that second to last episode. And it’s a focus on her and Fitz in the background. And it’s just this beautiful shot that she directs. And it’s, like, a perfect summary of the whole show and why they can’t be together. And I was just like, “This moment could be just a gif.” She’s so talented.

Guillermo Diaz [00:29:53] She was also the lead of the show. Like, she had a million things to do in front of the camera.

Katie Lowes [00:29:58] And she never took a Saturday off. We’d be like, “What are you doing this weekend? You finally going to get sleep?” She’s like, “I have 700 photoshoots on a Saturday.”

Guillermo Diaz [00:30:04] She was constantly working.

Katie Lowes [00:30:05] “At the same time, I’m cooking a child.” She had two children on the show.

Ashley Ray [00:30:10] Right, she was pregnant during the show.

Katie Lowes [00:30:12] Could you imagine being pregnant, wearing six-inch heels, and working 80 hours a week?

Guillermo Diaz [00:30:22] If I had a tummy ache, I’m like, “I can’t do this right now.”

Ashley Ray [00:30:28] And I mean, the Gladiators–we were watching, and I remember there was a whole, like, Tumblr dedicated to all the purses and things to hide her pregnancy.

Katie Lowes [00:30:40] But that’s what makes episodic TV the most fun. We’re in your living room every single Thursday. You’re watching these characters that you love, who also happen to be people leading lives and making big life choices. And they’re doing both at the same time. I was really lucky when Shonda was like, “We’re going to make Quinn pregnant.” I was like, “Oh thank God because I ain’t going to look pregnant like Kerry Washington looks pregnant. I’ll tell you right now.”

Ashley Ray [00:31:03] They would just be like, “Oh, she’s on the couch.” And she’d have a giant throw pillow over her stomach. And you’d be like, “Okay. So why…? Sure.”

Katie Lowes [00:31:10] I can remember her doing some, like, pretty hard scenes–scary scenes. Like, I think Joe Morton shot somebody in OPA in Huck’s office.

Ashley Ray [00:31:21] I remember this.

Katie Lowes [00:31:22] Kerry was pregnant and had to just kind of yell at him.

Ashley Ray [00:31:25] It was the first murder in the OPA office or something.

Guillermo Diaz [00:31:30] I remember the body laying on the OPA table, right?

Katie Lowes [00:31:33] I think so, too. And she yelled at him or something. And then I remember us all being to the baby like, “It’s okay, it’s okay. This is just pretend.” And they would do the same for me because we were, like, in crazy situations.

Guillermo Diaz [00:31:45] Yeah, you were pregnant in the last season, right?

Katie Lowes [00:31:48] Yeah. My last episode I shot before I gave birth was the one where Quinn is handcuffed to Papa Pope’s bed downstairs in the basement. And I have to, like, put a dude in a chain choke hold around his neck and escape. And I got kidnaped in a wedding dress. That’s what I remember.

Ashley Ray [00:32:11] Wedding kidnaping.

Katie Lowes [00:32:12] I had my baby two weeks later, I think.

Ashley Ray [00:32:13] Oh my gosh.

Katie Lowes [00:32:15] What’s amazing about Shondaland and why it’s the greatest place to work is because, like, I had a gravity chair where my feet were up high. They built a safer set of stairs in and out of my trailer. They gave me a P.A. specifically assigned to me to just get me peanut butter jelly sandwiches and, like, bananas or whatever the hell I wanted.

Guillermo Diaz [00:32:37] Hummus and pickles.

Katie Lowes [00:32:38] Hummus and pickles all day was all I could crave. And they also just always had… I remember that day specifically, they were like, “Do you want an OB on set?” And I was like, “No, like, it’s going to be fine.” But it’s just such a great place to work if you’re a mom.

Ashley Ray [00:32:56] Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard.

Guillermo Diaz [00:32:57] Didn’t Shonda tell you, Katie, “If you want to get pregnant, this is the time to do it because you know I got your back”?

Katie Lowes [00:33:06] She had taken a lot of women through it. Between Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, and Scandal, she had done it a bunch. And she was just like, “Listen to me.” She was asking me, like, “if a family is something you’re interested in doing…” I also got married on the show, but she was like, “If a family is something you’re interested in having, I’m really good at helping you through that and being on your job and being comfortable and all that.” I mean, that’s unheard of.

Ashley Ray [00:33:30] Yeah, that’s amazing. And obviously Shonda–she likes to use kind of her vetted stable of actors, which, Katie, you clearly are one in Inventing Anna. What was it like to get the call she wanted to work with you again? And were you familiar with that story?

Katie Lowes [00:33:45] Yes, I remember we were at a Scandal table read when the news broke that Shonda was going over to a Netflix deal. And I remember being like, “Oh my gosh.” And then we were in another Scandal table read when it had broken in Deadline or something that she had optioned the rights to this Anna Delvey article written by Jess Pressler about Anna Delvey. And I remember running home and reading what the article was about to see if the world could even contain someone who was my type.

Guillermo Diaz [00:34:11] Actors.

Katie Lowes [00:34:16] “Okay, okay. Anna Delvey is, like, in her 20s. Maybe she’ll have some friends? Or maybe somebody needs an assistant or, like, maybe I could get a job?” Because again, I had had my kid in Shondaland, and I really didn’t want to go work elsewhere, to be completely honest. I knew Scandal was ending, and I was like, “Please, please, can I just stay here because I don’t know what it’s like to work elsewhere and I have a little baby and I’d like to have another little baby.” So, then I went to do Waitress on Broadway. And she came to see it. And we were hanging out until late, and she was like, “I think there’s going to be a part for you in this.” And I was like, “Wait, what?” The percolating started to happen. I didn’t know what part it was going to be. Again, I’m, like, rushing home and Googling the story.

Ashley Ray [00:34:59] “Who could it be?”

Katie Lowes [00:35:00] And I saw and felt an immediate connection to this girl, Rachel.

Ashley Ray [00:35:04] To Rachel, yeah.

Katie Lowes [00:35:05] I was like, “Oh, I think I could do that.”

Ashley Ray [00:35:07] And I think at that point, Rachel’s story was starting to come out.

Katie Lowes [00:35:10] Rachel was doing a lot of press for her book. And I was looking at some interviews of her. And I was like, “God, I’m a little bit long in the tooth. I’m a little bit older than this person, but I think I still got it. Like, I think I could still do it.” And then I got a call. She was just like, “I want you to play Rachel DeLoache Williams.” And she was such an interesting character, and they had the most amazing researching team. And it was amazing. And when she told me Julia Garner was playing Anna, I just about fell over dead on the floor. And Laverne Cox I’ve been a fan of forever. And Anna Chlumsky and the whole group and… It was just really exciting to be a part of her first cable streaming venture. But the best part for you Scandal-Inventing Anna crossover fans was I walked into the first table read super nervous. I don’t know how this is going to go. This is new. I’ve been with my Scandal family for a hundred years. And in I walk, and there’s Jeff Perry and Kate Burton sitting right there. And I just felt immediately, you know, at home. And then Tom Verica who’s the producing director and directed a bunch of Scandal. But anyway, there were just a lot of people around who were in the family. And I felt really supported. And I love telling that story. And again, in that show, she took me through my second pregnancy. We had to shut down because of COVID. But I got pregnant, and I shot half the show before I had my second kid and then the second half of the show right after I had my second kid.

Ashley Ray [00:36:42] And with Quinn and Rachel I feel like for some reason you’re always given these characters who are victims who people should feel sorry for but somehow people hate that.

Katie Lowes [00:36:55] I’ve really got a knack. I don’t know why I play that. You know, it’s probably why she called me to play Rachel. No, I don’t know. Probably because she knows I’m… I don’t know, but I like to think of it as, like, I’m so compassionate towards Rachel. Like, I love her. And I know a lot of people hate her, but I really don’t. I love her. I, like, completely understood the decisions she made and why she made them. And it was so cool, we got to shoot in Morocco in the hotel where the con happened. We went to Morocco for, like, a month.

Ashley Ray [00:37:31] But did you really go to the middle of the tea garden, where she doesn’t have the money?

Katie Lowes [00:37:39] We did all the real stuff. We shot in the Riyadh that’s, like, $20,000 a night that she skipped the bill on, and Rachel put on her company card. But honestly, I–the whole time–have always been on Rachel’s side.

Ashley Ray [00:37:54] Me too. I was like, “Rachel’s not a bad person here, but people after it came out were like, “Well, she got money back from insurance. So, the fact that she even did that, she’s a horrible person.”

Katie Lowes [00:38:05] Yeah, agreed. But I think what’s great about Shonda’s writing–we talked a lot about this–was that’s up for everyone else to decide, not me. Shonda–like Olivia murdering somebody with a chair–is constantly creating these characters that operate in a gray zone. Like, I don’t know who is good or who is bad just because you think one person’s good, and another person thinks they’re bad. So, Rachel has been very polarizing, and I love it.

Ashley Ray [00:38:35] Oh, it is one of the most polarizing characters in any Shonda show. And I’m just like, “She straight up is a victim, but somehow–”

Katie Lowes [00:38:44] She’s the bad guy kind of. She takes down Anna Delvey in the end. she’s the person that, like, called the FBI…

Guillermo Diaz [00:38:53] Wait a minute. Can we talk about the actual Anna Delvey right now? Homegirl is on house arrest, and she got a show coming out!

Ashley Ray [00:38:58] She has a reality show.

Guillermo Diaz [00:39:03] Wasn’t the judge like, “What do you want to do?”

Ashley Ray [00:39:04] Yeah, the judge was like, “I’m not going to deport you. I see no reason why you couldn’t just, like, be a great girl from now on and do smart things.”

Katie Lowes [00:39:13] She’s a full-blown sociopath. I’m sorry. I can’t… I don’t know. I never met her. If I did, I would be terrified. She is the scariest.

Ashley Ray [00:39:26] I kind of want an episode of her show with the cast for Inventing Anna, where you all have a dinner.

Guillermo Diaz [00:39:30] Oh God!

Katie Lowes [00:39:32] Julia Garner–they went to visit her.

Ashley Ray [00:39:33] Wow.

Katie Lowes [00:39:34] Yeah, they went to visit her in prison.

Ashley Ray [00:39:36] Oh, yeah, right.

Katie Lowes [00:39:37] I didn’t get to go, but they went to visit. But I got a lot of information about Rachel from that meeting. Oh my God. Julia and I hung out afterwards, and I was like, “Tell me everything she said about Rachel,” which was a lot.

Guillermo Diaz [00:39:48] Was she mad at her?

Katie Lowes [00:39:51] And I used it. She just said stuff like, “It wasn’t that big of a deal. I stole $60,000 for her. She’s crying and upset like I got her gangbanged.”

Guillermo Diaz [00:40:02] Oh, my God.

Ashley Ray [00:40:05] Yeah, that sounds like Anna Delvey.

Katie Lowes [00:40:08] Yeah, she doesn’t have, like, that thing where you’re compassionate. So, people are fascinated by her, and it’s fascinating. She’s also this Robin Hood. She takes from the corporations and the man, which is great. But it’s not like she’s giving it to the poor. She’s going and buying bags.

Ashley Ray [00:40:25] She’s buying bags and going to Morocco.

Katie Lowes [00:40:26] But what I think is really interesting about Rachel, which I used a lot, was in an alternate reality sliding door, had ADF happened–had Anna Delvey successfully gotten the Anna Delvey Foundation sort of Soho House Art Club off the ground at Park Avenue South–Rachel DeLoache Williams would have been running it.

Ashley Ray [00:40:44] Oh, absolutely. So, there is a world where the scam worked out for both of them and they’re still friends.

Katie Lowes [00:40:50] So they would have been really powerful and cool and elitist and having this whole New York thing with, like, amazing art and art shows and, like, all this stuff.

Ashley Ray [00:41:00] Instead, she had to go to prison.

Katie Lowes [00:41:01] Yeah.

Ashley Ray [00:41:01] And Rachel wrote a book. Yeah.

Guillermo Diaz [00:41:04] Wow.

Katie Lowes [00:41:05] Yeah.

Guillermo Diaz [00:41:07] White people, right?

Ashley Ray [00:41:10] The whole Anna story is just white people.

Katie Lowes [00:41:13] You are correct.

Ashley Ray [00:41:14] Like, how do you get a reality show when you are on house arrest? And then celebrities are, like, proud to take pictures at her house. They’re like, “Here I am.”

Guillermo Diaz [00:41:24] Are you serious?

Ashley Ray [00:41:24] Yeah, like, a bunch of influencers and actors are going and shooting already and taking pictures.

Guillermo Diaz [00:41:32] That’s kind of upsetting. That’s really disrespectful.

Ashley Ray [00:41:33] Exactly. Only white criminals are able to profit off of their crimes in that way. You know, like, nobody’s making a story about that Black kid who pretended to be a doctor. And they should. I’d watch that movie. But, you know, he’s just facing jail time. But I would watch that movie.

Guillermo Diaz [00:41:48] I would, too.

Ashley Ray [00:41:50] Guillermo, would you love to rejoin the Shondaland? If there was a project, what would be kind of your dream situation?

Guillermo Diaz [00:41:59] Oh, don’t get me started. Well, I’m a huge horror film fan. And we do this thing on the podcast where I will research the guest stars of that particular episode and see if they’ve been in a horror movie. And then we’ll talk about the horror movie. And I just love horror and thrillers. So, if Shonda wrote a really smart…

Katie Lowes [00:42:19] That’s going to happen. I feel good about that for you.

Guillermo Diaz [00:42:23] I would love that so much.

Katie Lowes [00:42:24] I feel very good about that.

Guillermo Diaz [00:42:26] Really?

Katie Lowes [00:42:28] Like, a psychological one? Hell yeah.

Ashley Ray [00:42:29] A scary psychological thriller because, like, How to Get Away with Murder was going down that path.

Guillermo Diaz [00:42:33] Yeah, it’s in that same vein.

Ashley Ray [00:42:34] A lot of it is so scary.

Guillermo Diaz [00:42:38] And also, I feel like I’ve rejoined the Shondaland family because of our Unpacking the Toolbox podcast. So, I’m getting in there. But I’ve also thought–I think I mentioned to you, Katie–I would love to… You know how they have now scripted podcasts, right? I would love to possibly pitch a horror thriller scripted podcast.

Katie Lowes [00:42:57] Yes please.

Guillermo Diaz [00:42:58] Yeah. Wouldn’t that be great? We could just act with our voices, like this: “I’m going to kill you.”

Ashley Ray [00:43:06] Using your scary Huck voice.

Guillermo Diaz [00:43:08] But I’ll have to change it a little bit, so people aren’t like, “Oh, it’s Huck.”

Ashley Ray [00:43:12] “That’s just Huck doing murder.”

Guillermo Diaz [00:43:15] I’ll have an accent like this… or something. Oh, that’s terrible.

Ashley Ray [00:43:19] I kind of like that. That was good.

Katie Lowes [00:43:23] Guillermo, you can do anything.

Ashley Ray [00:43:24] Have either of you been in any of the other Shondaland shows? Did you do Grey’s Anatomy appearances?

Katie Lowes [00:43:30] I’ve done Grey’s and Private.

Ashley Ray [00:43:32] Okay. I’ve been watching Grey’s since the beginning, but I could never remember who has been in it.

Katie Lowes [00:43:36] Have you not?

Guillermo Diaz [00:43:37] I’ve never done Grey’s.

Katie Lowes [00:43:39] What the hell? It’s because you were just meant for Huck, man.

Guillermo Diaz [00:43:41] I did ER. I know that’s not a Shonda show, but I did ER. But yeah, I never did Grey’s or Practice.

Ashley Ray [00:43:47] You did Grey’s and Private Practice?

Katie Lowes [00:43:48] I did Private Practice. The premiere episode of Season Four, I left my baby in the backseat of a car and forgot about it. And the baby asphyxiated and died.

Ashley Ray [00:43:55] That’s very, very Private Practice.

Katie Lowes [00:43:56] Baby died. And then what was cool was we shot the pilot for Scandal, but I was still a nanny. And I was telling Shonda, like, while we were shooting all nights for the Scandal pilot–we shot it for about three weeks every single night, 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m…. And she would be around, and things would get really loopy. And I would tell her about my babysitting jobs and horror stories and things like that. And after we shot the pilot, we were waiting months and months and months to wait and hear if we would get a pickup. And so that’s a long time to go without a paycheck. So, my people called, and they said, “You’ve been offered a one-day guest star on Grey’s Anatomy. You’re going to have a couple scenes with Sandra Oh. And Shonda says you’re not allowed to take any babysitting jobs while we’re waiting to find out if Scandal is going to get picked up.” Like, she just was helping me out.

Ashley Ray [00:44:47] She’s like, “You’re not a babysitter anymore.”

Katie Lowes [00:44:51] I had a really bad babysitting job before Scandal. And she was like, “While you’re waiting, come do this,” because I was very right for the part. It was the part where Sandra Oh, like, finds out she’s pregnant through me.

Ashley Ray [00:45:03] Yeah. Yeah.

Katie Lowes [00:45:04] So I had a great time. Two days.

Ashley Ray [00:45:07] That’s a beautiful episode.

Katie Lowes [00:45:07] A little bit of cash.

Guillermo Diaz [00:45:10] Katie, do you remember telling us some of your nanny stories?

Katie Lowes [00:45:16] I used to tell her these stories of this family that didn’t believe in diapers.

Guillermo Diaz [00:45:19] Yes, but you would have to sit, like–

Katie Lowes [00:45:21] On the toilet with the baby and go, “Eh! Eh!” to make encouraging poop sounds. And then the kid would poop between my legs. I’m not even kidding you. And these people are billionaires. And this is why having too much money is a bad idea because you just go crazy. You go, like, “Oh, I’m not going to buy the Pampers. I’m not going to go super green and do a cloth diaper, which is also an option if you have a million nannies and people to clean the poop.” No, this was like, “I want you to hold the baby over the toilet bowl and make encouraging poop sounds.” And I’d have to straddle the bowl and then hold the little baby in between my legs. So, I told Shonda this. I think I got paid 20 an hour. I told Shonda this, and that’s why the Grey’s Anatomy guest star came into play.

Guillermo Diaz [00:46:10] She was like, “Hell no.”

Katie Lowes [00:46:12] “You’re not doing that while we wait,” because I think she felt like we had a good shot. And she just was like, “Let’s not have your soul die while we’re waiting to hear.”

Ashley Ray [00:46:24] She’s a saint.

Katie Lowes [00:46:25] Saint. Saint.

Ashley Ray [00:46:27] This is the end. I want to thank you both so, so much.

Guillermo Diaz [00:46:30] This was really, really fun.

Ashley Ray [00:46:36] I’m so, so happy I got to talk to you–to hear your reactions about Olivia beating a man in a wheelchair.

Guillermo Diaz [00:46:43] It feels like we’ve been talking for, like, two minutes.

Ashley Ray [00:46:45] It was so fast. And I’ve got 30 million more questions.

Katie Lowes [00:46:50] We’ll have to come back!

Ashley Ray [00:46:51] You can come back. Or I can just go listen to Unpacking the Toolbox. Or I’ll come visit.

Katie Lowes [00:46:56] Come be a guest.

Guillermo Diaz [00:46:57] Oh, yes! She could be a guest.

Ashley Ray [00:46:59] I would love to talk about it.

Katie Lowes [00:47:01] You’d be a great guest to talk about how you reviewed the show and everything like that. I’m really curious.

Ashley Ray [00:47:06] I can pull up my old reviews. I have so many.

Katie Lowes [00:47:08] I would love that. That’s a good idea. We’re going to pitch it. Thank you for having us on.

Ashley Ray [00:47:12] Thank you for joining us on TV, I Say. We’ll be back next week for another episode.

Katie Lowes [00:47:18] Bye!

Guillermo Diaz [00:47:19] Bye!

Ashley Ray [00:47:30] TV, I Say with Ashley Ray is an Earwolf production made by me, Ashley Ray-Harris. It’s engineered by Abby Aguilar, produced by Anita Flores, executive produced by Amelia Chappelow. And our original theme song is by RaFia. It means so much to me if you go rate, review, subscribe. Follow TV, I Say. Let us know what you think and tell your friends. Share with your Golden Girls. Tell your Boys. If you love my TV recommendations, let everyone you know know. For special TV Club members, join my Patreon. And you can also find my full archive ad-free episodes of TV, I Say over on Stitcher Premium. Use promo code “tvisay,” all one word, for a one-month free trial at stitcher.com/premium.