Tony Goldwyn Says “The Divide” Isn’t ‘a Political Show’ Like “Scandal”

ABC

(NEW YORK) — Tony Goldwyn isn’t just a star of ABC’s hit drama Scandal. He’s also the co-creator of WeTV’s first scripted series, The Divide.

The series centers on a passionate legal student at the Innocence Initiative, who finds a piece of evidence that can rattle a high-profile, racially-charged case, in which a white man accused of killing a wealthy African-American family in Philadelphia is fighting for his life on death row. Over eight episodes, viewers will be taken on a roller-coaster ride to see how every player involved in this case copes.

Goldwyn warns that this show isn’t about politics. “We’re not making a political show, like, look how horrible our justice system is, you know. We try and look at very real moral quandaries that we face every day, first of all in our…justice system where we have in theory probably the greatest system ever conceived of, or that would approach fairness and justice. But it doesn’t work that way in practice,” he explained.

“There are no good guys and no bad guys,” Goldwyn continued. “Everybody in our show, there are times you think, ‘I’m with her! She’s right’ or ‘I’m with him!’ and then we’ll turn it on its ear and that person will do something that you will find unconscionable. So, we challenge all of our characters and in doing so hopefully challenge ourselves.”

Most recently Goldwyn has been flexing his acting muscles as President Fitzgerald Grant in Scandal, created by Shonda Rhimes. Goldwyn tells ABC News Radio that he learned a lot from the showrunner when it came to developing story lines for The Divide.

“Our characters in Scandal will lead her to make decisions that she doesn’t know how she’s gonna get out of. You know what I mean? So, we’re always surprised by Scandal. That sort of gave us kind of confidence in a way,” Goldwyn, who also directs the series’ two-hour premiere, says. “Like, you can do that and it works and just go for it. If you feel something is right, you don’t always have to know how it’s gonna work out and sometimes it’s better that you don’t.”

So what does he like best: directing or acting? “That would certainly be cutting off one of my arms honestly. It would be awful to have to choose. But I suppose if I did have to choose I’d choose directing because you know it’s so endlessly creative and you are the central storyteller,” Goldwyn says. “And most importantly, you get to collaborate with so many different departments that go into making up a movie or a television series, in a way when you’re an actor you don’t quite have that interface.”

The Divide premieres on WeTV Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

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