Not all heroes wear capes. Some sport a tweed blazer and a pair of birding binoculars. That’s how viewers meet detective Cordelia Cupp — played with witty self-confidence by SAG–winner Uzo Aduba — in the crime comedy The Residence, executive produced by Shonda Rhimes, Betsy Beers, and Scandal writer Paul William Davies, who is also the creator and showrunner.

World-renowned investigator Cordelia is brought to the White House on an unprecedented evening. As a disastrous state dinner crumbles downstairs, the dead body of White House chief usher A. B. Wynter (Giancarlo Esposito) is found in the third-floor game room. Detective Cupp must cut through the secrets and competing agendas to figure out the truth about A. B.’s death. Her search for answers takes her on a twisty tour of the White House that’s worthy of a production by Shondaland — Rhimes’s powerhouse company that’s given us Scandal, Grey’s Anatomy, and Bridgerton.  

“What makes Cordelia part of the catalog of Shondaland heroines is that she’s strong, she doesn’t mince words, [and] she’s unapologetically herself,” Aduba says. “Shondaland heroines are smart. They are lethal with their words. They’re fearless women.”

Aduba is no stranger to portraying bold women. She broke out in 2013 playing Orange Is the New Black inmate Suzanne Warren, a character who could have just been the comic relief amid the bleak darkness of a prison drama. But Aduba imbued Suzanne with such warmth that she became a fan-favorite (and won Aduba the first two of her three Emmys). The actor returned to Netflix in 2023 as Edie Flowers in Painkiller, the moral center of a Big Pharma drama brimming with villains. The Residence, though, offers Aduba the chance to do something a little different with Cordelia, an idiosyncratic, entirely original birder with a singularly focused determination. 

“She is a character that I hadn’t played before. Cordelia isn’t afraid to stand out. She doesn’t operate like everyone else,” Aduba says. “It felt really, really fun — and exciting.” 

Below, the actor turns the magnifying glass on herself to take you inside the enigmatic world of Cordelia Cupp.

Uzo Aduba

Nino Muñoz

How would you describe the tone of The Residence?
It’s a screwball comedy and a murder-mystery adventure. The Residence is a different take and spin on the house that we all know. The show [asks] the question, “Who runs the [White House]?” And the answer is not what we think it is. 

How did you get involved with the series?
I got a call from the wonderful world of Shondaland and had dinner with Paul and the rest of the team. We just sat and talked about our interests — we talked about Boston, we talked about Antarctica, we talked about life. 

What did you think when you first got the script? 
I hadn’t read anything quite like it, frankly. It had such an energy and a foundation to it that I thought was really cool. The creative fit felt so wonderful. Paul felt like someone I could trust completely. And Shondaland is a house that I have loved and respected forever. I’m a big, big, big, big Scandal fan. So to have the opportunity to work with them was exciting. 

Cordelia wears a single outfit for much of the series. What was it like working with costume designer Lyn Paolo? 
There’s more than meets the eye when I look at Cordelia’s outfit. Lyn Paolo, who is a genius, knocked it out of the park with that look. It feels like [a] new spin on a superhero uniform. We’re used to seeing either the red cape with the S, or the black cape and the mask on Batman. But this is Cordelia’s uniform.

How did you and Paolo settle on the outfit? 
I had a lot of fittings with Lyn. We had the button-up shirt, the vest, [and] the pants figured out for a really long time. But we kept trying on different jackets. We were doing wool coats, long trenches, colored trenches, all these different things. Open, closed, belted, tied, everything. During the last fitting, she said, “I want to try one more coat,” and on the hanger was the tweed blazer with the leather patches. I immediately — and I do mean immediately — knew that was it. We put it on and it was just right. 

Uzo Aduba

Nino Muñoz

What did the outfit tell you about who Cordelia is as a person and a detective? 
It made me understand completely who this woman is, because I’d never seen a look like it. It felt like there was history connected to the traditional murder-mystery outfit that’s worn by the detective — but it also had a bit more of a fresher play to it as well. It’s modern. It helped me to really understand to what extent she was not going to fit into the White House. Cordelia really wasn’t going to look like [she’s a] part of this world that we’re all familiar with. And it really felt emblematic of the fact that she doesn’t fit into any world. She is a woman that is entirely her own — singular — and she is OK moving through the world in that way. 

You’ve played so many memorable characters, from Suzanne in Orange Is the New Black to Edie in Painkiller. What does Cordelia bring out of you that’s different from those roles? 
The Residence brings me back home to comedy. I haven’t been in the comedy space since Orange. I’ve been doing a lot of drama. Obviously, Painkiller is very serious — a more intense, dramatic story. So The Residence really brings back some of the light that I’m excited to be a part of. What’s great about this show also is that, I would say, it’s somewhat similar to Orange. It’s a peek inside a world that we don’t often get to see.

Cordelia is a birder. Are you now a birder yourself? 
I don’t bird regularly, but I did go birding for this part. I didn’t know what birding was going to be like when I first went. It’s actually very calming, very relaxing. 

What does Cordelia’s birding say about her? 
It tells me about her patience. Birding takes an incredible amount of patience. You have to wait, wait, wait for the moment to come to you versus … chasing after birds, because birds can see everything. So it told me so much about how she investigates cases — that she’s a patient woman, and you have to pay attention to every single detail because it all relates.

What would you say about the mystery at the heart of The Residence? 
It’s unsolvable to everyone except Cordelia Cupp.