Scandal‘s Resident Villain Joe Morton on Dastardly Deeds, Olivia, Jake and More

Joe Morton has played Scandal‘s resident villain Rowan Pope for several seasons now—and there isn’t a more dastardly bad guy on TV when you consider the number of people he has given the order to have killed as head of the clandestine, black-ops division B613.

B613 may have been disbanded, but Rowan isn’t going anywhere, to the delight of Scandal fans, especially considering that Morton was just made a series regular. He was too good to let get away, which was a problem last season when he was a regular on TNT’s Proof.

But now Rowan is back in full force, and Olivia’s (Kerry Washington) father is in cahoots with Jake (Scott Foley). The two pulled off quite a coup when they were successful in their scheme to have Jake named head of the NSA. What else do the two men have up their sleeve?

Morton isn’t revealing any deep, dark secrets—especially because he wants to keep his new status as a series regular—but he did talk to Parade.com about how Rowan justifies his nefarious schemes, his relationships with Jake and Olivia, his upcoming role in Steven Spielberg’s All the Way, and his one-man show Turn Me Lose.

Rowan has done so many dastardly deeds, how do you go there with him?

From his point of view, they’re not dastardly, right? From his point of view, he’s either protecting the republic or he’s protecting his daughter. So what he does is just the same thing as what Malcolm X said years ago: By any means necessary.

He gave the order to kill the president’s son and he released the name of 17 jurors, who were then murdered.

But he did that latter deed to make sure that Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) didn’t get impeached, and that’s what his daughter asked him to do. So again, from his point of view, he’s doing exactly what he thinks will protect the country and protect his daughter.

What do you think is his upbringing that he can justify it?

Well, it must have been pretty difficult. I mean, my father was in the service when I was a kid and he made it to the rank of captain. To be a black man in the United States Army in those days, and to make it to the rank of captain, was enormously difficult. You had everybody and everything wanting that not to happen. So for Rowan, I’m sure, it’s the same. However he made his way to the top, to that kind of power, I’m sure he had to go through an awful, awful lot, both on a personal level, as well as on a political level, to reach that high, gain it and then to hold onto it. So it was no easy task by any means to get there.

To our knowledge, B613 has been disbanded. So what can you tease about Rowan’s future?  If he’s not going to be heading that, what do you see him doing?

Well, Rowan is all about power. So no matter what he does, he’s going to be looking for a way to hold on to it. I think one of the things that we’re learning about that kind of power is just look at what goes on in the real world in terms of the presidency.

Everybody who has a sniff of what that feels like or what that’s like, it becomes something else. I said to Olivia, “You know, you were in the Oval. You had the Oval.  You were running it, and now, nothing else will compare to that. You’ve tasted blood and you want more.” So I think the same is true for Rowan; he will find a way to gain that kind of power again.

Does that mean he wants Olivia to go back to Fitz, or does he see another way for her to get the power again?

I don’t think he has any desire for her to go back to Fitz, but I think he would love for her to put herself in the position where she has that kind of power, whatever that means. I’m not quite sure where we’re going with that yet, but I think that’s what he meant. It’s not so much about Fitz but about the power of the Oval Office.

Which could mean that Olivia aligns with Mellie (Bellamy Young), who’s running for president, and then becomes her trusted adviser. She would be back in the Oval.

Something like that could happen, yes.

Talk a little bit about Rowan’s connection to Jake. Rowan told Olivia that Jake came home. Does he really see himself as a father figure to Jake, or do you think he’s just using Jake to get power?

No. I think he does. I think that seeing the two guys—Jake and Russell (Brian White)—last season, where Russell was bound and the two of them start talking about Rowan, and they start remembering things that Rowan had said to them, they make it very clear that Rowan’s way of getting these young men to do what he wants them to do is he makes them feel like they’re his sons. He brings them up with that kind of competition , you know, brothers might compete with one another, as well as feel a love for one another and certainly a love for him. The guys that he brings in are guys who need someone to make them feel wanted, and he does that very well.

You won an Emmy for this role. How special is that?

It was the first big award that I’ve ever won. I was nominated for a Tony, but never won one. So, when the Emmy happened, I woke up the following morning and said to my girlfriend that it felt like a dream. I wanted to go back into the living room, where the statue was standing, and see if it was still there.

You also have a role coming up in Steven Spielberg’s All The Way for HBO. Can you talk a little bit about who you play?

I play Roy Wilkins, who was at the time head of the NAACP, and has a very contentious relationship with the members of SNCC and CORE, because he was closer to the kinds of things that Martin Luther King was doing in terms of non-violence. SNCC and CORE were getting to the point where they were far more interested in being aggressive, more like Malcolm X, more like The Black Panther party, because they saw their people being chewed up by dogs and beat up by fire hoses. So that’s the relationship that you will see in the movie, a very contentious relationship between him and the other organizations.

You’re also working on a one-man show, Turn Me Loose, in which you portray Dick Gregory, but that’s in New York. Talk a little bit about why you chose Dick Gregory and also how you juggle that with Scandal.

Dick Gregory is somebody that I actually got to know years ago. He is a brilliant comedian and a very serious activist in terms of racial and other matters in this country. He also was someone who was talking about the kind of nutrition that we’re talking about these days, long before anybody else was talking about sugar being worse than cocaine.

So his life and his conflict, of being a man who had to make a decision between becoming rich and famous or an activist, is very powerful. We’re using a lot of his routines, as well as a lot of the things that he said in public, at universities and the like.

It was something that when it came my way, I really, really wanted to do because of what he says and the message that the play gives. It is, in many ways, a call to action. It’s a play that says you have to know who you are and that the things that you believe may be happening to you, you actually have more control over changing than you think you do.

In terms of juggling the play, we finish shooting Scandal around April 22 thereabouts. I will have been in rehearsal here in LA, while doing Scandal, to get ready for New York, and then I’ll finish rehearsal in New York after April 22. I believe we open sometime around the first week in May, and we will run through July when I have to come back here to do Scandal again.

Scandal airs Thursday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.