Kerry Washington hopes to reach a point in Hollywood where Black women aren’t seen as “ground-breakers” and can just get on with being “excellent” at their jobs.
Kerry Washington hopes to reach a point in Hollywood where Black women aren’t seen as “ground-breakers”.
The ‘Scandal’ actress thinks there are “far more opportunities” for women of colour now than in the early days of her career and she hopes the industry eventually stops making them feel they constantly have to fight to “break glass ceilings”.
Discussing her fight for better represenation, she told Grazia magazine she wants to “Ensure Black women can just be, without being ground-breakers or record-breakers. That we can just be excellent because we are not beating down doors and breaking glass ceilings.”
Kerry is very proud of her new movie, ‘The Six Triple Eight’, which follows the real story of America’s only women’s army corps unit of colour during World War II.
She said: “[It is] a film where we are presenting so many extraordinary young Black actresses to the world.”
The 47-year-old actress stars in the movie and is also a producer, and in her latter role, she enjoyed getting the chance to “take care of” Oprah Winfrey, who portrays civil rights leader Mary McLeod Bethune.
She said: “I really adore Oprah. I’ve known her for a long time, so it was fun to be an executive producer on a project that she was working on. On the day she was on set, I was like, ‘What do you need? Can I get you anything? Are you feeling good?’ I just really tried to take care of her.
“Mary McLeod Bethune was thought of as one of our most exceptional Black women – she was the best of us – and I think we think of Oprah in that way too, so it felt right.”
Kerry appears as army officer Charity Adams in the film and hopes people won’t be thinking about her previous work when they watch.
She said: “Charity Adams struck me as having a different kind of power to that I’ve ever been able to play before.
“I’ve played really iconic characters, like Olivia Pope [in ‘Scandal’] and Broomhilda [in ‘Django Unchained’], and so I felt like if I do this film and people are watching my performance and they think about Kerry Washington, or they think about Olivia Pope, then I’m really doing a disservice to the legacy of Charity Adams and these women.”
Kerry Washington talks representation dream
