Who is Kerry Washington?

Kerry Washington’s new memoir Thicker Than Water is getting lots of buzz right now, not least because of the revelations concerning her biological father. But the actor famously keeps a low profile. Who is she, and what’s there to know? We’ve got you covered.

Washington’s beginnings in film and TV

Born in 1977 in New York, Washington’s interest in performing began with dance — she learned the rudiments from none other than Jennifer Lopez in the 1990s — and early supporting roles in TV series such as NYPD Blue and Law and Order followed in the early 2000s. Washington’s big-screen debut was in the low-budget coming-of-age drama Our Song, which earned critical acclaim on its release in 2000. 2002’s Bad Company saw Washington appear alongside big-name Hollywood stars for the first time, as Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock starring as a chalk-and-cheese double act looking to save New York from terrorists, but the film bombed at the box office, and it was not until her impeccable work opposite Will Smith in the Ray Charles biopic Ray (2004) that she received wider attention.

Success on the big screen

Washington spent much of the next decade in increasing demand, mixing superhero blockbusters — she starred as Alicia Masters in the 2005 version of Fantastic Four and reprised the role in the 2007 sequel Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer — with more serious work: Her excellent performance as Kay Amin, the wife of psychopathic dictator Idi Amin (Forest Whittaker), in The Last King of Scotland (2006) generated rave reviews, as did her work portraying a young woman unable to have children who seeks an adoption in Mother and Child (2009). Washington also famously appeared as Broomhilda, the slave servant in antebellum America who speaks German, opposite Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained (2012).

By then, Washington had already been tapped for the lead role in Scandal, the long-running ABC drama about an ambitious White House “fixer” that would make her a household name. The series ran from 2012 to 2019, and earned Washington widespread critical acclaim, as well as a Golden Globe nomination. More recently, Washington has segued into television direction, as well as executive producer work on Little Fires Everywhere (2020), which also featured Reese Witherspoon, and Unprisoned (2023), this year’s Hulu drama about a marriage therapist, in which she stars in the lead role. She also joined the cast of The Simpsons last year.

When not out on the picket line with other A-listers during the present SAG-AFTRA strike, Washington famously keeps her private life under wraps, but she married fellow actor and former NFL quarterback Nnamdi Asomugha in 2013. The couple have two children.