Thicker than Water: A Memoir

On November 9, 2016, Kerry Washington woke up to Olivia Pope’s name trending on Twitter asking her to fix American politics. At this point, she had played the character for five seasons. She felt sick at the thought that Donald Trump had become president and that millions of people had not voted to stop it despite millions of people wanting a fictional character to fix it.

In the early 2000s, Kerry met several politicians. In late 2007, she met soon-to-be President Barack Obama. When she tried to introduce herself, he commented that he already knew who she was. A few weeks later, she attended a fundraising event and was asked to speak briefly. From then on, she visited 16 states as a representative of the Obama campaign, which she enjoyed because she loved listening to people and reminding them that their voices mattered.

Kerry used her characters’ habits as templates to set boundaries around eating and exercise but struggled when she wasn’t in a role. She also struggled with increased publicity. On the campaign trail, she had to go with the flow and enjoyed the whirlwind movements of campaigning. Believing that acting allowed her to see humanity more clearly and that, in turn, it helped her believe in the importance of human rights, Kerry joined the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities after Obama was elected.

While she was vetted for this role, she appeared as Susan in the Broadway play Race. Backstage one night, she met her future husband, Nnamdi Asomugha.

One day shortly after getting cast as Olivia Pope and wrapping up filming for her role as an escaped slave in Django Unchained, Kerry called Valerie Jarrett, President Obama’s most senior advisor. She wanted to warn her about the political nature of both roles, worried that it would be a conflict of interest with her role on the President’s Committee. It wasn’t a problem, and she was involved in various initiatives to promote art education across the country.

During Scandal’s second season, Kerry was interviewed by Oprah and talked about her different roles. Scandal had gained a lot of attention in the press because it was the first time in 37 years that a Black woman led a network drama. Olivia Pope had come to represent Black excellence. She was, as Kerry described her, “the answer to Broomhilda’s prayers” (214), referencing the character she played in Django Unchained. Portraying Broomhilda von Shaft involved more explicit sexual and physical violence than Kerry had done before, but she was excited to work with both Quentin Tarantino and Jamie Foxx. The film was difficult to shoot, and the cast all worked to ensure they did justice to the many enslaved people who had experienced their characters’ trials in real life. She felt grateful that a Black man could be seen as a hero and that their love story in the movie was, in some ways, like a fairytale.

Kerry remembers how, as a child, her cousin had commented that there were never any Black superheroes. Kerry’s father said that there was, inventing the “Chitterlin’ Man” and periodically calling her cousin, pretending to be the hero.

The cast of Scandal gathered to watch the pilot at Shonda Rhimes’s home. Kerry sat on the far side of the room, nervous about seeing her own performance and with her self-image. However, watching the show became a tradition within the cast, especially because they responded in real time on social media, and she grew increasingly close to the other cast members as a result.

Initially, Scandal was only granted six episodes, likely because it had a Black woman as the lead. As a result, the show could also take great risks to build intensity. The social media presence of Kerry, Shonda, and the rest of the cast helped bolster the show’s popularity, and they were eventually granted additional episodes and a second season.

The near-simultaneous release of Scandal and Django Unchained skyrocketed Kerry’s fame. She was swamped with attention and began to feel torn between her role as Olivia, her public identity, and her inner self. She grew distant from some friends because she couldn’t consistently reach out. However, she bonded with the cast and crew of Scandal because they worked together for so long, and Kerry felt her mask drop and that she could be honest with others. Her role as Olivia Pope helped her become more comfortable with intimacy between friends. Since she was first on the call sheet, the role also helped her become a leader, enabling her to “find [her] own sense of capability and power” (229).

In June 2013, she and Nnamdi married. She kept her engagement secret because she did not want public attention on the wedding. They incorporated elements of their life, ancestry, and history into the wedding, including traditional Nigerian regalia designed by Nnamdi’s younger sister. Kerry wanted to walk down the aisle by herself, but she instead separated from her dad partway through.

Kerry has always thought of her family as beginning with her mother’s life on Simpson Street in the South Bronx, inspiring her to name her production company after that street. She didn’t tell her mother about it until the premiere of the company’s first film, Confirmation, which was about the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings. Her mother had always believed Anita Hill. Kerry played Anita Hill, dedicating herself to the character’s physical and vocal aspects. Sometimes, she imagined what she would feel in a situation through a “replacement exercise.” She related to Anita’s lack of privacy, especially because her marriage certificate was found and leaked online. Five months later, news of her pregnancy also circulated. They bought a home but never moved in because the address was discovered. She and Nnamdi developed ways of keeping secrets from the public to protect their children’s privacy.

Portraying Anita Hill, Kerry knew that she would relate to her in many ways, but she also realized that she had her own history of sexual trauma. She had protected the boy, just as Anita had protected Clarence Thomas. As a result, the role provided her with some healing.

While Kerry could embody Olivia in many ways, she was challenged when she became pregnant, realizing that she was going to change physically in contrast to the physicality she tried to maintain to be Olivia Pope. She reached out to a new acting coach to learn how she could bring new elements to Olivia’s character when she could no longer bring her body in the same way. She worked to better understand herself in order to better understand Olivia. Her life as Kerry took on new meaning.

Working at Shondaland (Shonda Rhimes’s production company), Kerry found it a family-friendly place. She, Shonda, and actor Viola Davis started a playroom where their children could be present on set.

Kerry then describes how, in Scandal, it often felt like the script reflected parts of the actors’ lives as the writers learned more about them. For instance, after Kerry shared that she was a strong swimmer, the writing made Olivia Pope a strong swimmer. She closes the chapter by describing how she and her father once swam across the lake at their lake house when she was 11, a dangerous adventure since no lifeguards or life vests were available. However, it brought her and her father closer than ever before.