Baller Alert Entertainment & Lifestyle 
Actress Bellamy Young opened up about what Scandal taught her about the power of sisterhood in a new interview with Glamour.
It’s Women’s History Month, and to celebrate, Glamour gathered women in the industry to reflect on womanhood and the women in their lives that have impacted them. The interview featured Andrea Mitchell, Jackie Aina, Cecile Richards, and Bellamy Young.
Each lady received their own article in which they explore several areas of their personal experience being a woman. In Young’s piece, she shared that getting the part as “Mellie Grant” on Scandal was a “big break” as she knew the journey in acting would be more difficult because of her age. “In 2011, Shonda Rhimes cast me as Mellie Grant on Scandal. I knew that the role was a huge break, especially for a woman in her 40s. At that point, knowing what I knew about television and this business, I had just given up hope on certain kinds of opportunities. It had taken a toll on me. It’s like, ‘Well, I won’t be cast as that kind of character.’ Or, ‘Okay, I won’t get that kind of part.’ As soon as someone posts your age online, you just know your options are narrowing,” said Young.
Eventually, Young became a series regular on the show. While Young was excited to get more work as an actor, she also began to see the power in her unique character that Shonda Rhimes had created. “She writes souls, and then over time, through casting, those souls reveal themselves to her. All of those details—gender, sexuality, race—come into clearer focus, which is how that small part became something so much bigger,” she said. “I remember standing there, thinking how fortunate I was just to be in that room. But then I got in front of Shonda, and there’s something in how she sees you. It’s profound. It’s not overt, and it’s not strange. It’s so safe and curious and accepting. She looks at you, and she doesn’t see your outfit or your hair. She sees who you are,” Young explained.
“It was an acting job, of course. It was work. But it was also transformational for me, as a person. I got to be a different kind of woman. And I have said that to Shonda too. I’ve told her: “I don’t know how you chose me, but I am grateful for Mellie. I am grateful that I got to be her. I am grateful that people got to know her,” Young added.
Young said the show changed her idea of what a woman could be and achieve. The actress who refers to herself as a dual citizen of America and Shondaland said she grew up being taught to “succeed at any price, move forward, and leave everyone else in the dust.” However, she believes the narrative for women is changing. “But it’s still hard to be a woman in a position of power. There’s this sense that if we make one wrong move, we’re out. It wasn’t like that with Scandal or with Shonda, who taught us all to work and stretch and fall and stand and laugh and fail and sob and just be honest about what we were going through.”
She continued, “I hope that we passed a little of that on to the audience, to the women who saw Mellie Grant and Olivia Pope onscreen and felt just a little braver in their own lives. These women were not perfect. So far from it. But when the time came, they knew how to stand up for themselves. They failed big-time, but they stood their ground.” Young said that because of Scandal, she is now more aware of issues in politics, social issues, and more.⠀⠀
Young eventually partnered with CARE, an organization that fights for women’s rights. “Thanks to Scandal, I woke up to politics. I felt more responsible than I had before. I started to learn a little bit more, first about women in politics here, and then about women in politics around the world, and then about policies and the challenges that make it hard for women in other countries to live better lives. In 2019, that drove me to get involved with CARE, a humanitarian organization that works toward equal rights for women and girls around the globe. And this month I got the women of Scandal—Kerry Washington, Katie Lowes, and of course Shonda—to create a PSA with me to raise awareness about the work that CARE does and about how powerful women are when we are given opportunities to reach our full potential in honor of International Women’s Day.”
