Thicker than Water: A Memoir

“And with that answer, both Olivia Pope and the actor playing her declared an approach to what felt like the beginnings of freedom.”

Kerry starred as Olivia Pope on Scandal for seven seasons, and her relationship to the character was critical to her understanding of herself. Olivia’s words at the end of the series about a limitless horizon to start fresh reflected her own.

“I remember being in the pool, surrounded by crystal blue threads of light shimmering all around me; I remember the sounds of other kids laughing, playing, splashing.”

Kerry started swimming at a young age, spending many hours each summer in the pool at her apartment complex. A recurring motif in her memoir, swimming helped her center herself even when she suspected something was missing in her life or when she pushed her own wants and needs aside to please others.

“When I am in the water, I am at peace, and when I submerged, between breaths, I feel most at home with myself, in my body.”

Kerry’s relationship with her body was tenuous. She struggled with her body image, so feeling at home in water was important for both her mental and physical health.

“Leaning into my curiosity is perhaps the single most important tool my mother has given me.”

Valerie Washington instilled a sense of curiosity in her daughter that later became critical to Kerry’s approach to her roles as an actor. In each, she researched the types of places her characters were in so that she could better understand them.

“We were a fairy-tale portrait of success. And this was the only show I knew—we performed it all day long, and for years. This script was how we tried to avoid pain, messiness, and discomfort.”

Kerry’s family valued appearing as if their life was perfect, and this vision of perfection took a toll on Kerry, who felt that she always had to do everything right. Her desire to please others often took precedence over her well-being, and she disappeared into her character’s lives because she lacked a strong sense of self.

“My prayer is that their spirits remain as powerful and buoyant on land as they are in the water. And in the light of day as well as at night.”

Kerry’s childhood experience shapes her approach to parenting. While on land, Kerry felt self-conscious in her body, whereas in the water she felt more confident, and she hopes that her expectations of her children (which do not include perfection) will help provide a more supportive, safe environment than she had.

“That decision marked the first time I thought that it would be better to put other people’s needs ahead of my own. I’ll figure it out, I thought. I will find my way.”

Kerry chose not to reveal that she was sexually assaulted and to protect the perpetrator, feeling that she could deal with the consequences of his actions better than he could. She did not recognize that his actions would have long-term effects on her.

“Maintaining peace meant withholding the truth, and that void of truth was at the very center of us.”

This statement thematically illuminates Searching for Truth and Trust. Kerry felt that her parents prioritized peace over truth in her life, meaning to protect her, but this led to her never feeling free to fully be herself. Having to second-guess herself isolated her and made it difficult for her to authentically connect to others.

“Each role I took on gave me permission to escape the trappings of my family’s dance and explore what being human could feel like. Each character needed me to feel deeply, to take risks, and to tell their truth.”

This passage thematically develops Performing as Others to Perform as Oneself. Kerry found an escape in performance. She made her characters three-dimensional, giving them a reality she felt distant from in her own life.

“I thought that the book could allow me that control, that my perfection could heal our family’s disconnection.”

Kerry found A New You: The Art of Good Grooming at the library and used it as a manual to maintain a vision of perfection for her parents, hoping to bring them closer together. She became attached to the book and never even returned it.

“To perform meant to deliver excellence and to meet, if not exceed, expectations.”

Performance intersected with Kerry’s need for perfection. She sought to deeply understand each character she played and hoped her performances reflected this thorough approach. Additionally, performing enabled her to express a wide range of emotions and feelings that she did not feel free to express in her life.

“I had no memory of ever feeling this way before. I felt safe, and I had spent most of my life not feeling safe.”

Kerry felt unsafe because she did not feel like she could fully be herself with her family. Practicing yoga forced her to be present in her body in a way that she was unfamiliar with, and as a result, she found that she could better ground herself.

“I thought I went to India to be onstage. Instead, I realized I went there to be with myself.”

Travel often helps people to know themselves better, offering new sights and experiences as well as the opportunity for deep reflection. Kerry found that in dedicating time to performance in India, she could better dedicate time to herself.

“This means you, as the actor, get to evolve through the characters if you let them teach you.”

At first, performance was an escape for Kerry, but she realized that she could use her characters’ traits to bring out parts of herself she had ignored or suppressed, which thematically aligns with Performing as Others to Perform as Yourself.

“I only knew that my name belonged to public spaces in a way that made privacy unavailable to me.”

Kerry struggled with fame because the ways that she and her husband had to keep secrets or sneak around to avoid the press felt like she was perpetuating the cycle of secrets that she experienced while growing up with her parents. However, her priority is the safety and security of her children.

“To be an actor is to consider the humanity of others.”

Supporting the theme of Acting and Activism, Kerry highlights that acting showed her the importance of representation. In addition, she attempted to foreground the humanity of her characters in a way that felt authentic both to her and to audience members who had shared the experience or whose family had.

“There was ‘Kerry Washington,’ who had become an avatar for progress and inclusion and fashion and fame—she, too, had a calculated appearance and way of being.”

As Kerry’s fame grew, she had to confront what she as an actor would stand up for, and she became more involved in political campaigns and activism. However, this meant that part of her real life also became a performance.

“Kim’s belief is that characters and their circumstances come to actors because there is a need in the actor’s subconscious to explore or express specific ideas that are engendered by the work.”

Kerry refers to the acting coach she worked with when she became pregnant and could no longer physically inhabit Olivia in the same way. She took Kim’s advice to learn more about herself to better serve her performance as Olivia. Through this introspection she felt more in touch with herself than she had in years .This thematically illustrates Performing as Others to Perform as Oneself.

“I needed to figure out how to move forward with my story regardless of how that might impact him. I needed to find a way to be OK, whether he was willing to live in the truth or not.”

Even after Kerry learned that she was conceived with the help of a sperm donor, her father pushed her to keep it a secret, and Kerry struggled with this, wanting to please him. However, she resisted that instinct, putting herself first.

“We love pools, we love lakes, we love beaches. We’re water people.”

Swimming was part of many important moments in Kerry’s life and helped her connect to her parents, especially her father, since both were strong swimmers. They even swam across a lake together without lifeguards or life jackets, an analogy for risk-taking and the absolute trust inherent in unconditional love.

“This life and these parents have made me exactly who I am.”

Kerry reflects that though she and her dad are not blood relatives, she is grateful for her parents and who they are. Knowing the truth about her parentage helped her grow closer to each of them.

“My biology had been their enemy. Consequently, I had learned to survive without a true relationship to it. I didn’t know my body I couldn’t read its signs.”

Kerry’s suspicion that something was missing in her relationship with her family had physical effects on her relationship with her body, and discovering the truth about what was missing helped her heal herself and trust herself more.

“The three of them were a family forged to survive the crossing. He had chosen them; they had chosen each other.”

Kerry reflects on the whales coming together to make a journey, the male whale accompanying the female to prove that he was worthy enough to mate with her for the next season, and she sees a parallel with her own life. Her father stayed with her mother despite knowing that Kerry’s biological father was likely a sperm donor, not him, and Kerry respects his showing up for her as a father.