Kerry Washington

Kerry Marisa Washington (born January 31, 1977) is an American actress.

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.

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 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.

She has also starred in the independent films Our Song (2000), The Dead Girl (2006), Mother and Child (2009), Night Catches Us (2010), and American Son (2019).

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 film, Washington is known for her roles as Della Bea Robinson in Ray (2004), as Kay in The Last King of Scotland (2006), as Alicia Masters in the live-action Fantastic Four films of 2005 and 2007, and as Broomhilda von Shaft in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained (2012).

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 2010, Washington made her Broadway debut in the original production of David Mamet's play Race, alongside James Spader (with whom she worked on Boston Legal), David Alan Grier, and Richard Thomas.

She also appeared as a part of the ensemble in Tyler Perry's 2010 drama film For Colored Girls.

She gained wide public 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 starred in Quentin Tarantino's film Django Unchained (2012), which received widespread critical acclaim.

She was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in June 2012 along with 175 other individuals.

From April 2012 to April 2018, Washington starred in the ABC drama series Scandal, created by Shonda Rhimes, as Olivia Pope, a crisis manager who runs her own crisis management firm called Olivia Pope & Associates in Washington, D.C. In this position, she worked for high-profile figures, most notably the President of the United States, who was also her on-off lover.

The show was a commercial and critical success, and was called one of the most talked about drama series on Facebook and Twitter.

Time magazine included Washington in its Time 100 list of most influential people in 2014.

Her portrayal of Anita Hill in the HBO television political thriller film Confirmation (2016), and her role as Mia Warren in the Hulu miniseries Little Fires Everywhere (2020), both earned nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie.

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.

In 2018, Forbes named her the eighth highest-paid television actress.

Washington has won a Primetime Emmy Award and five NAACP Image Awards, including The President's Award.

Washington was born in the Bronx, New York City, the daughter of Valerie, a professor and educational consultant, and Earl Washington, a real estate broker.

Her father'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.