Kerry Washington: 'My mom read that Kerry was a reference to the black Irish'
Kerry Washington at the premiere of Netflix film The Six Triple Eight, in Hollywood. Picture Presley Ann/Getty Images.
A visit to The Kingdom has long been on US actress Kerry Washington’s wishlist. After all, she is named after the Irish county - a name chosen for her by her mother, who wished to embrace her European heritage.
“In the 70s, a lot of black people were naming their kids very Afrocentric names to honour our blackness and embrace their heritage,” says Washington.
“My mom is of mixed heritage - both of her parents are Jamaican, but she comes from a British, Irish, Scottish line in Jamaica. So it's some indigenous, some African and some European.
“She wanted to name me something that was connected to heritage, and she thought that the Gaelic language was so beautiful, but also she had read that Kerry was a reference to the black Irish, that it means 'dark one'.
For her, it felt like a way to embrace all sides of her. They also didn't know what gender child they were having, so they wanted to pick a unisex name. And so Kerry it is!”
Washington has been keen for a long time to see the place she’s named after - and even looked at visiting with Irish actor Andrew Scott, who she got to know when filming Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, this summer.
“I just love Andrew. He kept saying to me: ‘You have to go to Ireland this summer, you are named for county Kerry.’ Every time he was going, I was filming, I just wasn't able to get there. I'm dying to go.”
In the meantime, Washington is exploring another side of her culture. She stars in The Six Triple Eight, a new film that features a unique slice of WW2 history. Filmmaker Tyler Perry’s movie tells the story of the first and only Women’s Army Corps unit of colour to serve overseas during the war. Facing racism and sexism, they were determined to serve their country and make a difference. Washington plays Major Charity Adams, the US 6888th battalion’s commanding officer.
“I learned about them just a few days before Tyler sent me his idea for the film actually,” says Washington. “I used to do a series on Instagram called Black Her Story. I'd dress up as different women from black history, like Rosa Parks and Grace Jones. My social media director brought me an article about the 6888th and she said: ‘Why don't we do one of these women?’
“I spent the weekend doing the photo shoot,” she says, adding that she opened a mail from Perry about the film days later. “It just felt like divine coincidence, and I knew that I wanted to be a part of it.”
Adams, who Washington plays, played her own part in history, leading the first African American women unit of the army overseas during WW2. In preparing to bring her to the screen, there are different challenges when it comes to playing a person who has lived, she agrees.
“I've been really lucky in my career that I've been asked to play a bunch of people who are either real characters from history, like Anita Hill or Kay Amin or Della B, Ray Charles’s wife, or play characters that are inspired by real people, like Olivia Pope.
“I would say it's twofold. In some ways, it's a lot easier, because there's so much source material. There's so much research that you can dive into. Charity Adams wrote a fantastic memoir called One Woman's Army that I devoured more than once, and then was constantly referring to. There were interviews with her and archival footage and old photographs, and I could talk to people who knew her, worked with her, loved her. That's the good part.
“The downside is it's so much pressure. There is that source material to compare you to, and there are loved ones, you know, her children are still alive. So I was so nervous for her children to see the film, because you want to make sure that you are honouring her humanity. There are parts that make it easier, and parts of it that make it more challenging, a little more intimidating.”
As somebody who likes to prepare in great depth for a role, the passing of time means sharing their stories is more important than ever. When Perry started working on the movie, there were five surviving members of the battalion. Now, says Washington, there are two.
“I got to speak with one of them, who was actually Charity Adams’s driver.
“She was so adored by these women, which was interesting to me, because she was tough, but I think she is such a beautiful example of leadership, of gentle leadership. She had very high expectations. She was very strict with them, as you can see from the moment we meet her. But she also led with love. She respected them. She had compassion and a lot of care for their well being, for their humanity.”
Over the past two decades, Washington has become one of the most consistently reliable on-screen stars. Movie roles include Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained and Kevin MacDonald’s The Last King of Scotland, while TV work has included award-winning turns in Little Fires Everywhere and Scandal.
When she first pursued an acting career, she says, she gave herself a year to try and establish herself, and there were many major turning points along the way.
“My very first film was life changing. It was a film called Our Song, a tiny, little independent film, but it was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award.
Initially, when I left college, I went to live in India for a few months, and when I came back, I gave myself one year where, if I could get a significant job in that one year, I would pursue a career in acting, and otherwise I was going to go back to school for law or maybe clinical psychology. So when I got Our Song, it felt like a life changing moment.
“The next film I did was Save the Last Dance, which was my first big kind of commercial studio film. I was part of a film called Bad Company, starring Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock, directed by Joel Shoemaker. That film will always hold a really special place in my heart, because that was the film where, that year, I finally earned enough money to have health insurance. There have been turning points all along the way.”
Scandal, the series in which she played a former White House Communications Director who starts her own crisis management firm, was also a huge series for Washington, she says. “I would say undeniably, Scandal was a game changer, because up until that point, I had really been like a character actor. Scandal just transformed that - she was such a pop culture icon, and she just really changed my life, changed my career trajectory.”
- The Six Triple Eight is on Netflix from Friday, December 20
