‘This is what happens again and again’: Amazing scripts have kept Kerry Washington from quitting acting for years

We’ve all been there; you’re curled up on your couch, empty popcorn bowl just inches away from you, eyes fixated on your current Netflix indulgence despite your increasingly heavy eyelids. Suddenly, the cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers greets you at the episode’s end, grabbing your attention by the horns, imbuing newfound alertness in you, and causing you to mutter – almost guiltily as you glance at a clock that has probably passed midnight as this point – “just one more episode…”

Now imagine that, except instead of “just one more episode,” it’s “just one more script”; that’s the situation that Emmy-winning actress Kerry Washington has found herself in for nearly two decades now.

In a recent interview with W Magazine, the UnPrisoned star revealed that she’s been trying to break free from Hollywood for some time now, naming an influx of captivating scripts as the culprits behind her continued presence in front of the camera.

“I have spent a lifetime trying to not be an actor. I am always quitting this business, and then right when I decide that I’m done is when something extraordinary comes across my desk. I was really, really done with this business right before I read the script for Ray. I was really, really done with this business right before I read the script for The Last King of Scotland. I was entirely done with this business before reading the script for Scandal. This is what happens again and again.”

Now, Ray came out in 2004, so it appears that Washington’s struggle to leave Hollywood due to exceptional scripts has been a challenge for her for quite a while. Her comments seem to be all in good fun, but note that it was the writers who managed to keep a talent like Washington anchored in the business and not the studio executives who continue to turn a blind eye to the importance of the industry’s many scribes and thespians; it’s no wonder Washington was finished with Hollywood on multiple occasions.

Washington is next set to appear in Tyler Perry’s upcoming Netflix war drama Six Triple Eight, where she’ll portray Major Charity Adams, the commanding officer of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, an entirely Black and female US Army battalion active during the Second World War.