Background

Ethnicity: Kerry Washington's father is from an African-American family. Her mother’s family is Jamaican, from St. Elizabeth (of mostly Afro-Jamaican background).

Kerry Washington was born on January 31, 1977, in New York City, New York, the United States, to Valerie, a professor and educational consultant, and Earl Washington, a real estate broker. She grew up in the South Bronx.

Education

Washington had an extroverted nature ever since she was a kid, which further amplified her desire to perform in front of the camera. She expressed her wish to her parents, but they did not care about it much.

However, Kerry’s aspirations were strong, by the time she was in her teenage years. She attended the same middle school as Jennifer Lopez, and they became great friends during their school days, sharing their ambitions about making it big in show business. Kerry also learned how to dance from Lopez.

Growing up, she had another role model in Larry Maldonado, who lived in her neighborhood in the Bronx and played a major role in sustaining Kerry’s dreams of becoming an actress. Kerry started participating in theater in high school and eventually, became one of the most popular kids in her school.

In order to further polish her acting skills, she joined the teen wing of TADA! Youth Theater. She was also interested in political affairs and attended Nelson Mandela’s speech at the Yankee Stadium upon his release from prison. She started acting while in high school, and after she graduated from Spence School in Manhattan in 1994, she joined the George Washington University for further studies.

She graduated from college with a double major in sociology and anthropology. This was a backup, in case acting did not turn out well for her. She was exceptional in academics and rejected offers from Yale University and Dartmouth College to concentrate on her acting career.

She took acting lessons at the Michael Howard Studios before officially plunging into the world of Hollywood.

Career

Kerry Washington started her acting career in 1994, starring in commercials and music videos. Her screen debut happened with the 1994 television film Magical Make-Over. She also appeared in the 1996 educational series Standard Deviants.

She found it very hard to strike a balance between academics and her film career, and eventually, decided to go with the former. During this time, she kept doing theater and commercials. Once she graduated from college in 1998, she started auditioning for movies.

While she made her film debut in Our Song in 2000, Washington had one of her first career breakthroughs the following year. She won over audiences with her role in Save the Last Dance (2001), starring Julia Stiles. Soon after the release of this popular teen drama, Washington moved on to comedy. She appeared in the humorous action film Bad Company (2004), starring Chris Rock and Anthony Hopkins.

Washington's career really took flight in 2004; she had several major movie roles that year, including Della Bea Robinson, the wife of blind singer and musician Ray Charles, in the biopic Ray. Washington received strong reviews for her performance, and her co-star, Jamie Foxx, won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Charles. That same year, she starred opposite Anthony Mackie in Spike Lee's dramatic comedy She Hate Me.

The versatile actress tried her hand at the comic book action genre with 2005's Fantastic Four, portraying sculptor Alicia Masters opposite Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, and Michael Chiklis. The following year, Washington once again showed off her skills as a dramatic actress in The Last King of Scotland. She won raves for her nuanced turn as the wife of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, as played by Forest Whitaker. Around this time, Washington also had a recurring role on the hit television series Boston Legal.

In 2007, Washington re-teamed with Rock for I Think I Love My Wife, playing a vixen who gets involved with a married man. The part gave Washington the opportunity to branch out from the many devoted wife roles she had tackled in the past. She went on to explore interracial relationships with the thriller Lakeview Terrace (2008), in which she plays an African-American woman married to a white man (Patrick Wilson). The couple is harassed by an African-American cop (Samuel L. Jackson).

With For Colored Girls (2010), Washington worked with an impressive ensemble of actresses, including Whoopi Goldberg, Phylicia Rashad, Janet Jackson, and Thandie Newton. The film, directed and written by Tyler Perry, was an adaptation of a play by Ntozake Shange.

In 2012, Washington reunited with Ray co-star Foxx for Quentin Tarantino's western Django Unchained. She played Broomhilda von Shaft, a slave married to Foxx's title character. In the film, the pair are separated, and Django teams up with a bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) to find her. The following year, Washington was featured in the comedy/drama Peeples.

Also in 2012, Washington moved to the small screen to star on the political drama Scandal, created by ABC powerhouse Shonda Rhimes. In the series, Washington played Olivia Pope, a "fixer," or person who cleans up scandals and other messes for her clients. The actress went on to earn two Emmy nominations and won an NAACP Image Award for the role. Scandal's series finale aired in April 2018.

Washington added another accomplishment to her roster of acting feats when she portrayed lawyer/academic Anita Hill in the 2016 HBO film Confirmation. The movie dramatized the 1991 Congressional hearings in which Hill asserted that Supreme Court justice nominee Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her in the workplace. Washington received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for her performance.

Washington made her Broadway debut in 2009, as part of the ensemble for David Mamet's Race. In 2018, following the conclusion of Scandal, it was announced that she was returning to the Great White Way to co-star in a new play, American Son, alongside Steven Pasquale. The production was adapted for a feature film released by Netflix the following year.

Achievements

• 

  Kerry Washington was one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World in April 2014. In 2018, Forbes named her the eighth highest-paid television actress.
  
  On May 19, 2013, she was the commencement speaker for her alma mater, George Washington University. Before giving her commencement address she was presented with an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts.

Works

More photos

• movie

  • Mother And Child

    (From writer-director Rodrigo Garcia (TV'S "Big Love", "Ni...)

    2009
  • Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

    (The Fantastic Four meet their greatest challenge yet in F...)

    2007
  • Lakeview Terrace

    (A young couple (Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington) has ...)

    2008
  • For Colored Girls

    (Each of the women portray one of the characters represent...)

    2010
  • Fantastic Four

    (The superhero world's most famous dysfunctional family tu...)

    2005
  • The Last King of Scotland

    (Set in Uganda in the 1970's, The Last King of Scotland is...)

    2006
  • The Details

    (Tobey Maguire, Elizabeth Banks star in this darkly funny ...)

    2011
  • 30, 000 Leagues Under the Sea

    (This modern retelling of the classic science-fiction tale...)

    2007
  • Little Man

    (When a stolen diamond is stashed in the home of a wannabe...)

    2006
  • Ray

    (Jamie Foxx stars as the one-of-a-kind innovator of soul, ...)

    2004
  • Peeples

    (Sparks fly when Wade Walker (Craig Robinson) crashes the ...)

    2013
  • Mr. And Mrs. Smith

    (A typical married couple - a little bored with their rela...)

    2005
  • Against The Ropes

    (Meg Ryan is a knockout as Jackie Kallen-boxing's first fe...)

    2004
  • Human Stain

    (A university professor's world starts to unravel when he ...)

    2003
  • She Hate Me

    (A fired business exec discovers he can earn a living help...)

    2004
  • I Think I Love My Wife

    (A successful investment banker with a beautiful wife and ...)

    2007
  • Sin

    (While searching for his missing sister, a retired cop fin...)

    2003
  • Our Song

    (Three teenage girls face the challenges of growing up in ...)

    2000
  • A Thousand Words

    (A fast-talking agent can only speak 1, 000 more words bef...)

    2012
  • The Dead Girl

    (The life of a lonesome caretaker is turned upside down wh...)

    2006
  • Cars 3

    (Blindsided by a new generation of racers, Lightning McQue...)

    2017
  • The United States of Leland

    (Sixteen-year-old Leland Fitzgerald kills a boy and is sub...)

    2003
  • Bad Company

    (The CIA recruits the twin brother of an agent killed in t...)

    2002
  • Save The Last Dance

    (Sara is a small-town girl who dreams to become a world-cl...)

    2001
  • Django Unchained

    (Winner of 2 Academy Awards including Best Original Screen...)

    2012
  • Miracle At St. Anna

    (Directed by Spike Lee, Miracle At St. Anna follows four m...)

    2008
  • Night Catches Us

    (Set in 70s Philadelphia. After years away, an ex-black pa...)

    2010

• TV series

  • Scandal

    (Everyone has a secret... and Olivia Pope has dedicated he...)

    2012

Religion

Kerry Washington regularly attends church.

Politics

Washington supported Barack Obama during his both presidential campaigns and even spoke at the Democratic National Convention in 2012. In her speech, she revealed her view that the Democrats are the party of the common person. About the first three words of the United States Constitution: “We the people,” she said: "I love that phrase so much. Throughout our country’s history, we’ve expanded the meaning of that phrase to include more and more of us. That’s what it means to move forward. And that’s what this election is all about."

Kerry Washington believes politics are not something to be ignored. She said in her speech at the Democratic National Convention: "You may not be thinking about politics, but politics is thinking about you."

In March 2016, Washington and fellow ShondaLand colleagues, Ellen Pompeo, Viola Davis, and Shonda Rhimes, appeared in a commercial endorsing Hillary Clinton for President.

Views

In her spare time, Washington is active in many social and political causes. She is a member of the Creative Coalition, a group dedicated to raising awareness of First Amendment Rights and support of arts in education and a new program called Adopt-A-Classroom in New York City, and sits on the board of V-Day, an organization that works to end violence against women.

When Barrack Obama was the president of the United States, he appointed Kerry Washington to the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. As part of her role on the committee, Washington supported schools in poverty-stricken areas. One of the schools she supported was the Savoy Elementary School in Washington D.C. She promoted arts within the school and believes that the school made significant improvements following her involvement.

Quotations: "I am inspired by women who cultivate their inner beauty as much as their outer beauty - who are unafraid to be both smart and sexy. Being around people I love, who really love me, who I can really be myself with... that is what makes me feel beautiful."

"I realized that I don't have to be perfect. All I have to do is show up and enjoy the messy, imperfect and beautiful journey of my life. It's a trip more wonderful than I could have imagined."

"I try not to let my politics limit me artistically, and you know say like "Well, I can't do that because I don't ever want to play a black prostitute" or "I can't do that because I don't ever want to play, you know a drug addict." I really try not to do that. What's important to me is to make sure my characters ring true that they reflect a trueness to society because if I can bring out the true humanity of a character than I'm not perpetuating a stereotype I'm actually revealing a truth."

Personality

After graduating, Kerry Washington took some time out to travel around India. She took the opportunity to learn some new skills and enhance her performance education while she was in this country. She studied both yoga and a form of traditional Indian theater. She said that while she was studying Indian theater, they didn’t even let her on stage.

If she wasn't an actress today, she said she would love to be a clinical psychologist: "I imagined I'd be a clinical psychologist, with a focus on how performance shapes identity. I'd figure out ways to use role-playing in the healing of people."

While shooting Scandal, Washington started a tradition for the Scandal team. Whenever she starts filming a new episode, she shouts the episode number, applauds and hits the furniture to make noise.

Interests

• singing, dancing

• Politicians

  Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton

• Writers

  From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg, Surpassing Certainty by Janet Mock

• Artists

  Edgar Degas

• Sport & Clubs

  swimming

• Music & Bands

  Shirley Murdoch, Alicia Keys

Connections

In June 2013, Washington married pro football player Nnamdi Asomugha. The couple had been dating for about a year before tying the knot. They have a daughter and a son.

Father:

Earl Washington

Mother:

Valerie Washington

Spouse:

Nnamdi Asomugha

colleague:

James McAvoy

Friend:

Jennifer Lopez

Growing up in the Bronx, Washington attended the same local Boys and Girls Club of America as Jennifer Lopez. Later Jennifer Lopez was Washington's high school dancing teacher.

colleague:

Michelle Williams

colleague:

Brad Pitt

colleague:

Chris Evans

colleague:

James Franco

colleague:

Patrick Wilson

colleague:

Naomi Watts

colleague:

Elizabeth Banks

colleague:

Quentin Tarantino

colleague:

Leonardo DiCaprio

References

• Kerry Washington on Facebook
• Kerry Washington Official Site
• Kerry Washington on Twitter
• Kerry Washington on Instagram