‘Imperfect Women’ Star Kerry Washington on Eleanor’s Affair, Her Lies and That Viral Scandal: ‘I Get Frustrated With Her the Way We Might Get With Ourselves’

Kerry Washington‘s Eleanor really is an imperfect woman. One of the three leads of Apple TV’s thriller series, “Imperfect Women,” Eleanor has made no shortage of mistakes over the first three episodes.

Adapted from Araminta Hall’s novel of the same name, the show follows a trio of best friends whose lives are shattered when Nancy (Kate Mara) is murdered, leaving Mary (Elisabeth Moss) and Eleanor to re-evaluate everything they thought they knew about her — and their own lives.

The first three episodes focus on Eleanor, told through her perspective as she navigates the burden of being the only person to know that Nancy was having an affair with a man named David, but having no other details — and the feelings she’s long had for Nancy’s husband, Robert (Joel Kinnaman). The director of an international non-profit, Eleanor eventually starts an affair with Robert when they travel to Robert’s Ojai house in Episode 2, much to the displeasure of Mary and Eleanor’s brother Donovan. (Leslie Odom Jr.)

Things come to a head in Episode 3 when Eleanor (after the pair sleep together for the first time) realizes Robert lied about being in the dark about Nancy’s affair, and even wrote his wife a letter apologizing for his outburst when he found out. He denies any involvement in Nancy’s murder, and Eleanor storms out… only to return the next night and continue their illicit relationship. Robert’s college-aged daughter, Cora (Audrey Zahn), walks in on them fooling around in the pool, and despite the duo’s protests that nothing is going on between them, realizes she’s being lied to. The next day, Eleanor walks into work and is met by pointed stares and hushed whispers, thanks to a viral TikTok posted by Cora where the teenager has proclaimed, “Don’t you hate it when your dead mom’s best friend fucks your dad?!”

Things don’t get much better for Eleanor from there — the detective on Nancy’s case (Ana Ortiz) makes it clear that she thinks Eleanor is hiding something, her brother chews her out over the phone (“I told you so” is the general sentiment), and Mary is (obviously) upset when Eleanor attempts to defend her relationship with Robert. The icing on the cake? When she heads to Robert’s house, pleading with him to unite against the media frenzy, only for him to call off their relationship. “My attorneys are advising me to cut all communication with you,” he says, before delivering one last savage blow, telling Eleanor, “There is no ‘we’.”

The episode ends with Eleanor lawyering up with her brother by her side and a plot twist that reveals Nancy begged Eleanor to come with her to break things off with her lover the night she died, but Eleanor refused and ended up throwing Nancy out of her car. While Eleanor lies in bed, recollecting the last time she saw her friend, and overcome with guilt, Mary shows up at the door, saying she knows who David is.

Ahead of the show’s perspective shifting away from Eleanor for the upcoming episodes, Washington spoke with Variety about Eleanor’s character arc so far, her tumultuous relationship with Robert — and how her character was fleshed out as a Black woman.

We have to talk about the Robert of it all. Mary wants to go to the cops when she finds out Robert wrote Nancy a letter apologizing for getting violent after finding out about her affair, but Eleanor refuses. Why is Eleanor so convinced that he can do no wrong? Were there any points when reading the script that you were frustrated with her for not questioning him at all?

I think that oftentimes when we really love someone or are infatuated with them — depending on who you ask, and the section of the show you’re in -– which is how Eleanor feels, it can cause you to have blind spots about who a person is and aspects of their personality. But I didn’t feel frustrated with Eleanor. Part of my job as an actor is to really understand a character’s behavior, and to step inside the character’s behavior. I sometimes get frustrated with her in the way that we might get frustrated with ourselves, but I really try not to judge the characters, because I want to be able to embody their decisions with a lot of clarity.

At one point in the show, she says that she’s been in love with Robert since she was 18 years old. Did you feel that she was in love with him, or with the idea of him and them finally being together after all these years?

It’s difficult for her to separate out those thoughts. Until you’re with the person you love, all you have is the idea of what it’s going to be like with them.  

She’s quite surprised when he calls off their relationship. What did she think was going to happen with them going forward?

I think she was hoping that the dreams that she had of being able to be together were going to come true.

Do you see a world in which it could have maybe worked out?

I mean, it’s fiction, so anything’s possible! There are characters that we make up, and we write them, but it would take him having different values. The circumstances, the way they unfold on the show, are very provocative, and they inspire a lot of questions and introspection and conjecture. That’s part of what’s cool about the show, it makes us ask questions like that and wonder what would have to change.

What would you say to people thinking Eleanor’s not showing a lot of guilt over the affair?

I don’t agree with that. I think she feels tremendously guilty, eventually. In the moment, she’s caught up in her infatuation, passion and excitement of unrequited love that she feels may have taken a turn, but you have to give the show time for all of the feelings to unfold.

Moving on to her relationship with Nancy, why does she refuse to go with her to end the affair?

I think it’s because she’s frustrated with her about the choices that she’s making, given the fact that she knows those choices have an impact on Robert, and she just doesn’t want to be a part of Nancy not appreciating the marriage that she has. She obviously doesn’t think that the night is going to end tragically.

Elizabeth Moss’ character, Mary, is very invested in solving the mystery, digging for clues and following leads. In Episode 2, Mary and a reluctant Eleanor go to speak to Davide, Nancy’s suspected lover and person of interest in her case. Is there a reason that Eleanor is kind of taking a step back and looking at it with a more level head?

The thing that happens with Davide is very terrifying for her, because she throws out information [about Nancy’s affair], and it causes the arrest of a Black man who may be innocent. I think that gives her pause in corroborating with the police department or getting herself too involved.

Eleanor’s shown to be a character who’s pretty aware of public perception. It’s part of her job, and when the TikTok by Cora gets posted and attracts attention from the police and the public, how does that add to the stress of the situation?

For her, immensely. She’s obviously very, very stressed and angry about it.

You onboarded the project before Annie Weisman’s script was written. Were there any specific notes you had when building Eleanor’s character?

Lots, because I’m an executive producer on the show as well, so I’ve been involved from the development of scripts to casting to hiring rooms. [For Eleanor’s character specifically], not really, because we have an extraordinary writers’ room that is so talented and really inclusive with Black writers. I didn’t want to feel like it was my sole responsibility to understand and express Eleanor’s identity as a Black woman.

Going off that, I wanted to discuss that aspect of Eleanor’s identity. There’s a bit in the premiere where Eleanor says that she’s Nancy’s best and only Black friend, and later Robert asks if she knows Davide, seemingly because they’re both Black. How does race play a part in Eleanor’s story, and being part of a predominantly white friend group?

We wanted to find those moments where choosing to make Eleanor a Black woman didn’t just mean coloring her in with a brown crayon. It has cultural implications as well. So, we wanted to make sure that we pulled that thread throughout not just Eleanor’s life, but in the life of her friends, and how they all interact with each other, including the dynamics with her brother and, later on in the series, her mother.

Speaking of her brother, Donovan, it starts out as kind of a tough-love dynamic, and she starts turning to him more and more throughout the season, especially in Episode 3 after the breakup.

I think they really, really love each other. The great irony of friendship is that we might be most afraid to tell our truth because the idea of it is so terrifying. With her brother, they’re blood related, they share a family name, and I think Eleanor leans into her relationship with her brother because it’s almost attempting to see if people would stay once they hear the truth.

“Imperfect Women” is told through the perspectives of these three central women, and the audience sees only what they see in the episode. What can fans expect to find out about Eleanor as we see her through other people’s perspectives?

It’s one of my favorite things about the show, and one of my favorite things about the book. You feel like the whole book is going to be about Eleanor, then you turn to a page that says Nancy, and it’s like ‘Wait, that’s the dead girl! How does she have a voice?’ The shifting perspective is the magic of the show.

Are there any characteristics of Eleanor that have stuck with you?

Just how brave she is, with her travel. And I really love Eleanor’s wardrobe! She takes some big fashion risks. I don’t know if I would personally wear all of them, but I love her clothes.