Kerry Washington

Kerry Marisa Washington (born January 31, 1977) is an American actress and producer. She has received several accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award as well as nominations for two Golden Globe Awards and two Tony Awards. She was included in Time's 100 list of most influential people in 2014, and Forbes named her the eighth-highest-paid television actress in 2018.

Washington gained wide recognition for starring as crisis management expert Olivia Pope in the ABC drama series Scandal (2012–2018). For her role, she was twice nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series and once for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama. She was further Emmy-nominated for her roles as Anita Hill in the HBO political film Confirmation (2016), and a troubled mother in the Hulu miniseries Little Fires Everywhere (2020).

Washington made her feature film debut acting in the drama Our Song (2000). She played Alicia Masters in the live-action Fantastic Four films of 2005 and 2007, and has taken roles in diverse films such as Ray (2004), Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), The Last King of Scotland (2006), I Think I Love My Wife (2007), Mother and Child (2009), For Colored Girls (2010), and Django Unchained (2012). In 2024, she portrayed Major Charity Adams in the war film The Six Triple Eight.

On stage, she made her Broadway debut in David Mamet's play Race (2009). She returned to the Broadway stage starring in the Christopher Demos-Brown play American Son and reprised her role in the 2019 television adaptation on Netflix.

Washington was born on January 31, 1977, in The Bronx, New York City. Her mother Valerie, is a professor and educational consultant, and her father, Earl Washington, is a real estate broker. However, she wrote in her 2023 memoir that she found out that Earl Washington was not her biological father. Washington's family is of African-American origin, having moved from South Carolina to Brooklyn. Her mother's family is from Manhattan, and Washington has said that her mother is from a "mixed-race background and from Jamaica, so she is partly English and Scottish and Native American, but also descended from enslaved Africans in the Caribbean." Through her mother, she is a cousin of former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. She was conceived via a sperm donor, which she only learned in 2018.

Washington performed with the TADA! Youth Theater teen group and attended the Spence School in Manhattan from her pre-teen years until graduating from high school in 1994. At the age of 13, she was taken to watch Nelson Mandela speak at Yankee Stadium upon his release from prison. She attended George Washington University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1998 with a double major in anthropology and sociology. She also studied at Michael Howard Studios in New York City.

In April 2016, Washington confirmed that, in the 1990s in New York, she learned to dance from Jennifer Lopez. During her appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, she told host Jimmy Fallon: "I've been taking dance for a long time, since I was a little girl. I had this very inspiring teacher named Larry Maldonado, for anybody from my neighborhood in the Bronx, he was our role model. And he had an awesome substitute teacher named Jennifer, who would sometimes step in and teach. But, then she left to move to L.A. and be on In Living Color. I learned to dance from JLo!"

In 2023, Washington revealed that she had an abortion when she was in her late 20s.

Washington got her Screen Actors Guild (SAG) card as a requirement for a commercial that she starred in. Washington made her screen debut in the ABC telefilm Magical Make-Over (1994). She was in the cast of the 1996 PBS sketch comedy-style educational series Standard Deviants, and she appeared in the short "3D" and the feature film Our Song in 2000. She went on to appear in several movies, including Save the Last Dance (2001) and The Human Stain (2003). In 2002 she played Chris Rock's love interest in the spy thriller Bad Company, a film that represented a turning point for her, in that it was the first time in her career that she had made enough money annually to qualify for health insurance under SAG.

In 2004, she played the female lead in Spike Lee's She Hate Me, and she received strong reviews for her performance. After 2004, she held parts in Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Little Man (2006), I Think I Love My Wife (2007), and as a wife of 1970s Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the UK historical drama The Last King of Scotland (2006). Washington has also appeared in the recurring role of Chelina Hall on the ABC television series Boston Legal, and in several episodes of the A&E cable-TV series 100 Centre Street. In 2007, she co-directed and appeared in the music video for hip-hop artist Common's song, "I Want You", the fourth single from his album Finding Forever

and became a spokesperson for L'Oréal, appearing in commercials and ads alongside fellow actresses, Scarlett Johansson and Eva Longoria, Gong Li, Michelle Yeoh, Dian Sastrowardoyo, Aishwarya Rai, Maya Karin and model Doutzen Kroes.

Washington narrated the critically acclaimed documentary about the New Orleans–based teenage TBC Brass Band, From the Mouthpiece on Back. She also appears in Maxwell's "Bad Habits" video. In 2009, Washington performed in The People Speak, a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.

In 2019, Washington directed the seventh episode of the second season of Showtime's SMILF. She then starred in Live in Front of a Studio Audience on ABC in a recreation of The Jeffersons, portraying the role of Helen Willis. The same year, she reprised her role in the film adaptation of the Broadway play American Son, which she also executive produced, for Netflix. The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2019, and was released on November 1, 2019.

In 2020, Washington served as an executive producer on The Fight, a documentary film revolving around legal battles lawyers for the ACLU face during the Trump administration, which had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 30, 2020. That same year, she served as an executive producer and starred alongside Reese Witherspoon in the Hulu miniseries Little Fires Everywhere, an adaptation of Celeste Ng's 2017 novel of the same name. Washington directed the ninth episode of the fourth season of the HBO comedy series Insecure.

In September 2020, she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety Special (Live) as a producer of the television special Live in Front of a Studio Audience. In December 2020, Washington starred in The Prom, directed by Ryan Murphy for Netflix, as Mrs. Greene.

From 2022, Washington will star in the recurring role of fourth-grade teacher Rayshelle Peyton in The Simpsons. She plays Professor Clarissa Dovey in the film adaptation of Soman Chainani's The School for Good and Evil.

Washington will next star in the war drama The Six Triple Eight directed by Tyler Perry, and in the action thriller Shadow Force. She will also star alongside an ensemble cast in Rian Johnson's third installment of the Knives Out film series, titled Wake Up Dead Man.

Washington wrote in her memoir that a boy inappropriately touched her when she was a child. She also wrote in her memoir that, "By the time I got to college, my relationship with food and my body had become a toxic cycle of self-abuse that utilized the tools of starvation, binge eating, body obsession and compulsive exercise", and that she had suicidal thoughts.

Washington was engaged to actor David Moscow from October 2004 to March 2007.

In 2007, Washington and other celebrities joined for the 2007 Lee National Denim Day, supporting the Women's Cancer Programs of the Entertainment Industry Foundation. In September 2012, Washington spoke at the Democratic National Convention in favor of re-electing Barack Obama, with her speech focusing on addressing voter apathy. Washington has also used her celebrity status to support voter registration drives.

Washington is also a supporter of LGBT rights. In August 2013, she was named an honorary chairperson of the GLSEN Respect Awards; and she received the GLAAD Vanguard Award on March 21, 2015. In June 2016, the Human Rights Campaign released a video in tribute to the victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting; in the video, Washington and others told the stories of the people killed there.

She is a member of the Creative Coalition; which is a board of actors, writers, musicians, and producers that explore issues that are at the forefront of national discourse. She is also a member of V-Day, a global movement that brings awareness to violence against women and girls. In March 2016, Washington and fellow ShondaLand colleagues, Ellen Pompeo, Viola Davis and Shonda Rhimes, appeared in a commercial endorsing Hillary Clinton for president.

Washington emceed the third night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention. For the 2022 Georgia gubernatorial election, Washington endorsed Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams.

Among her many accolades, Washington has received a Primetime Emmy Awards, five NAACP Image Awards, a Teen Choice Award, and nominations for two Golden Globe Awards and four Screen Actors Guild Awards. One of the most successful women on television, she has received recognized by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (ATAS) with nine Emmy nominations, these being:

65th Primetime Emmy Awards (2013), Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, nomination, for Scandal

66th Primetime Emmy Awards (2014), Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, nomination, for Scandal

68th Primetime Emmy Awards (2016), two nominations

Outstanding Television Movie, nomination, for Confirmation