Scott Foley on that time his ‘Scandal’ character almost died

NEW YORK (AP) — Scott Foley teased “Scandal” fans when it appeared that his character, Jake Ballard, had been stabbed to death.

After the episode aired, Foley tweeted, “So there it is. Thank you Twitter for tonight and all of the Thursday nights. It’s such an honor.”

The next episode of the ABC drama revealed that Ballard had survived the attack.

In a recent interview, Foley broke down the tweet in this way:

“I said I’ve loved doing the show, which I have. I think I said ‘there it is,’ which it was. I’ve loved being a part of this show, which I have. Everything was present tense and I may have been leading people on.”

Reaction to the scene was “sort of like reading your own obituary,” he said.

“There’s something very strange about people talking about you like you’re no longer there and I’m there. And I’ll tell you the most interesting and sort of disheartening was reading really intelligent analysis of it where people believed that I was gone and the end would be something like, ‘We love ‘Scandal,’ but we think this is probably best for the show, so goodbye Jake. Thanks so much.’ And I thought, ‘That’s not really what I wanted to hear. I’m still here.'”

If Ballard had died, it would have been the second time that producer Shonda Rhimes had killed off Foley’s character. He played Henry Burton, who died on “Grey’s Anatomy.”

The 42-year-old Foley joked that it’s OK if Rhimes does it again — “as long as she keeps putting me on other shows!”

“Scandal,” also starring Kerry Washington and Tony Goldwyn, airs its season four finale Thursday (9 p.m. EDT).

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Follow Alicia Rancilio at http://www.twitter.com/aliciar

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Online:

http://www.abc.go.com/shows/scandal/

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