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If you thought Olivia Pope was getting things done on Scandal, you’ll definitely be pleased to know what the woman who inspires Ms. Pope’s excellence is doing in real life!

Judy Smith, the crisis guru, is currently taking on the Sony hack attack case, and has been advising Amy Pascal for the majority of the process.

TMZ reports:

Sources connected with the studio tell us … Smith has been quietly advising Sony Pictures chief AmyPascal. We’re told her focus is dealing with the torrent of criticism over the studio dropping “The Interview.”

Smith runs Smith & Company, one of the premiere crisis management firms in the country.

Our sources tell us Smith has been especially helpful to Sony because of her deep contacts with the government, and she has been involved on both the D.C. and Hollywood fronts.

We’re told Smith and other members of the Sony crisis team have been  behind some of the recent messaging … that this is not just a Sony issue but an industry issue … which takes some of the heat off Sony.

To add to Sony’s misery, a new batch of emails were released and Adam Sandler is involved yet again. The Grown Ups actor was trying to clear a movie version of “Candyland,” and asked the production company for $200 million upfront to create it.

Amy Pascal said of Sandler in the email: “Adam is an a**hole and this is more his fault than anyone’s but what we did was not communicate with each other and make assumptions.”

Welp there’s that.

As we all know, after the FBI confirmed that the ‘Guardians of Peace’ hackers were based in North Korea, Sony did not release The Interview, a decision that met criticism from President Obama.

The President spoke on the hack this week, saying he believed that the company “made a mistake” by cutting the film due to threats, but now CEO Michael Lynton is speaking out and defending the decision.

He also insisted that the company has “not given in, and we have not backed down.”

He told CNN’s host:

‘The president, the press, and the public are mistaken as to what actually happened,’ Lynton said. ‘We do not own movie theaters. We cannot determine whether or not a movie will be played in movie theaters.’

He went on to explain that the company scrapped the movie simply because theaters were not willing to show it.

Although Sony did not release The Interview on Christmas Day – in any theater in the country – apparently, that’s not the end of the film’s story. The company may attempt to release the film online eventually.

SOURCE: TMZ, Daily Mail | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty