Kerry Washington may play the fearless Olivia Pope on Scandal, but even the actress gets spooked.
While appearing on Thursday's episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Washington and Ellen DeGeneres played "Purple Purseword" — a spin on the classic word-association game named after the nonprofit Purple Purse. Each celebrity had to get the other to guess a secret word by giving one clue at a time.
The game started innocently. Washington got DeGeneres to say "rosé" with the clues "wine" and "pink," and DeGeneres got Washington to guess "guitar" with "electric" and "acoustic."
But things took a freaky turn once the actress got the host to guess "skeleton" with the clue "bones." DeGeneres followed up with the clue "whisper" for "secret," and cued a man in a skeleton costume to jump out from a table and scare Washington — so much so she screamed and got out of her chair.
"We never got you. You've been here 10 times, and we never got you," DeGeneres said. "It was an oversight that we never scared you, so we realized we had to take advantage of it."
"That's so mean," Washington said.
"No, what's mean is keeping that guy in here," DeGeneres quipped back.
Washington isn't DeGeneres' first victim. The host has spooked celebrities like Sam Smith, Carrie Underwood, Matt Lauer and Niall Horan. She's also pranked Modern Family's Eric Stonestreet a number of times. However, she usually scares her guests from the side table on her stage, making Washington's prank extra sneaky.
Watch the video to see the prank and tune into Ellen later today to see the full episode.