Thicker than Water: A Memoir

Kerry participated in a program in India in which she studied two South Indian movement arts: Kalaripayattu and yoga. The first, a martial art, was the foundation of South Indian performance traditions. Kerry first did yoga at the Spence School and remembers the corpse pose, where one lets one’s whole body relax. She cried because she felt so safe at a time when she seldom did. She recognized that yoga was a “way of life” (147). In India, Kerry saw God all around her, including through the many manifestations of God in the Hindu tradition.

She lived in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala, which was once known as Trivandrum but started to reclaim its heritage. There, she wore salwar kameez and saris, finding herself immersed in Indian culture. She walked each morning to the Kalaripayattu studio, where she studied the ancient martial art.

Commenting on the strangeness of memory, Kerry wonders whether her early memories aren’t as clear because of the sexual trauma of her youth and the gaslighting she experienced. However, her memories of sexual violation are distinct in her mind. She describes how one morning, on her walk to the Kalari (the studio), she saw a boy on a bike riding toward her. As he passed her, he grabbed at her chest. She told Don, her chaperone, and because he was so involved in the local community, he reached out to scold the boy. The boy explained that he had been watching Baywatch, and Kerry reflects on how the hyper-sexualization of Western women reaches around the world.

Kerry finishes the chapter by noting that she thought she went to India to perform but instead discovered that she went there to be present with herself. By the time she left, she felt more comfortable in her body and with herself as a whole. She sent her manager a postcard saying that she loved being in India but was excited about starting her career in the US.

When Kerry returned to the US, her manager, Kathy Atkinson, worked with her to find a new agency to represent her. At the Abrams Artist Agency, Ellen Gilbert was surprised that “Kerry Washington,” a “too perfect pseudonym—easy to pronounce, easy to remember,” was her real name (159). Despite this advantage, she experienced repeated rejection, which often felt like she as a person was being rejected, so she started to think about auditions as a “process rather than results” (162). She approached each audition by focusing on giving it all that she had. She set a one-year time limit for herself.

Kerry recalls that she eventually learned that auditions provide a service to casting directors because they learn more about what they’re looking for in a role. However, when she was first starting out, the rejections triggered her desire to people-please and be perfect. She again started the cycle of binge eating, exercising too much, and then not eating. It made her feel numb emotionally.

Her first movie role was in Our Song, which was filmed in 1999 and in which Kerry played Lanisha Brown. When reviews hit the press, Kerry received several calls and messages as she walked to a group recovery meeting. One reviewer called her performance “a miracle” (167).

Her second movie was Save the Last Dance, in which she played Chenille, a role she felt prepared to play because it was that of a teen mother and reminded her of the roles she played with STAR. Her experience filming this movie was quite different since it was with a major studio. However, as in Our Song, when she and her costars joined the band on which the movie was based, Kerry went to a program in a Chicago school system that catered to teen moms. In addition, she spent time with the babies who would play her child in the film.

Even though these first two movies were successful, Kerry still worked part time as a substitute teacher, a yoga teacher, and in a restaurant. She did not take parts that stereotyped women of color. Doing research for her role as Niecy in Lift led to Kerry think more about her relationship with her mother since Niecy likewise always wanted to make her mother happy.