Scandal’s Bellamy Young: Drunk Mellie Was ‘Terrifying’ But ‘So Much Fun’ To Play

“Scandal’s” First Lady Mellie Grant got a bit smashed inside the hallowed halls of the White House on last week’s episode.

Bellamy Young, who plays the magnificently manipulative wife of the President on the hit ABC drama, says that while “Drunk Mellie” turned out to be a huge hit with fans, she was initially nervous about taking on Mellie in all of her hooch-drunk glory!

“It was terrifying. I was so terrified,” Bellamy told Access Hollywood of tackling the tipsy “Scandal” scene in a new interview at her fashion fitting for Vogue.

As soon as Bellamy discovered she’d have to portray plastered Mellie, the actress said she wasted no time in starting to rehearse the scene.

“I ran straight from the table read to my acting coach, because pretending to die onscreen or pretending to be drunk on screen can be so tragic,” she said with a laugh. “But it wound up being so much fun.

“I just prepped as hard as I could and then I just had to, you know, live in Tony Goldwyn’s eyes and kind of navigate this amazing emotional typography that Shonda [Rimes’] brain has put on a page,” she continued. “And it was such an opportunity and I had so much fun doing it. And I loved that people love it.”

And Bellamy said she’s grateful to be able to deliver Mellie’s menacing monologues, week after week.

“The [monologues] are the opportunity of a lifetime, I mean, especially as a woman,” she told Access. “Especially as a woman of a certain age – you just don’t get that sort of material, that quality of material, and so I know how lucky I am and I work so hard to rise to the opportunity at hand.”

Adding, “But Shonda’s our Shakespeare, you know? And particularly for women. We are not given this complexity of character and this nuance of narrative. She’s really special and I love ever second of it.”

Catch an all-new “Scandal” – Thursday at 10/9c on ABC.

Erin O’Sullivan

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