I feel like I'm drawn to projects where we are forced to see each other and to know that everybody has is on their own hero's journey and has a story worth telling and deserves to be at the center of at least their own story.

I'm Carrie Washington, and this is the timeline of my career.

My first I am D B credit is for I believe in ABC Afterschool Special.

I played a very important supportive role, as I think, a cheerleader.

And actually, the thing I remember most about it is that that production was the job that got me my SAG card.

So I was officially in the union thanks to ABC.

Little did I know that many years later I'd spend seven seasons on ABC doing all the things they tell you not to do an after school specials.

Thanks.

At that point in my career, when I was doing the Afterschool special, my parents were super supportive because it was really just a hobby and provided supplemental income.

My mom really used my extracurricular, acting as somewhat of a carrot that she dangled before the rabbit because I wasn't allowed to audition.

If my grades weren't up, it had to not interfere with my school.

So I think she didn't mind me doing acting as an extra curricular activity.

But later on, when I chose it as a career, she was devastated.

It was not an easy decision to go to college, but I guess I kind of have always known that as much as I love acting, it's not the only thing I want to do in the world.

And so I really wanted Toa have a liberal arts degree.

I really wanted Thio give myself the opportunity to learn and grow and study for several years before becoming an actor.

But I actually had a very pivotal audition in my career where I said to my agents at the time, If I get this job, then I will defer college and if I don't get this job, then I'm gonna go to college for four years and I didn't get the job came down to me and one other actress and it went to that actress Tandy Newton.

So thanks to Tandy.

I have a college degree.

I'm here for you.

Your dad and I love you very much.

Could know.

Have you two?

Yeah.

So my first film was really beautiful in the movie called Our Song Actually got nominated for Cassidy's awarded in the Spirit Awards.

It was a very low budget film, but I didn't know what how films were made.

So, you know, our entire transport department wasn't like a bunch of Teamsters and trucks.

It was like four MetroCards and sometimes my mom would drop us off and all of the cast members and our various homes, But it was a really special movie.

The director's Jim McKay, who I adore, and I learned so much making that movie to be able to be in a film, playing a real girl in a marching band in New York.

It was every day I felt like all of my dreams had come true.

And while I was making that movie, I learned about save the last dance and read the script and auditioned What's wrong with him?

He don't know.

You can.

I'm his father.

He knows me.

What should I do?

Come around more often, see I can't talk to you and I can't depend on you in a lot of ways.

My character, she kneel and save the last dance was inspired by a lot of the real kids I was working with in Brooklyn filming our song because in order to film our song, we had to learn all of the routines and even be in parades that we really.

I joined a marching band in Brooklyn to make that movie, but I was very, very close to a lot of the band members.

They were my friends.

And so save the last dance and our song.

Those forms will always be for me, very tied to each other and actually not.

I wound up not being able to go to Sundance for our song because we were filming.

So when I was a kid, I grew up in the Bronx, in the same neighborhood as Jennifer Lopez.

We both studied with an incredible teacher, was really like a teacher to me, but a mentor to her, Larry Maldonado, became ill and had Thio not come toe class for several weeks, and Jennifer substituted because she was one of the big girls.

So I always brag.

The Jennifer Love has taught me to dance.

She was, in many ways, kind of a lighthouse to me was being a kid from the Bronx.

I didn't come from a showbiz family.

I didn't know anybody who had a career in this business, but knowing her and watching her used to, like, finish my homework on Sunday nights that it could see her being a fly girl on in living color.

So I think in some ways there was always a little part of me that thought maybe it was possible because Jennifer did it.

So there you go.

Tandy gets credit for my college degree.

Jennifer gets credit for me, even going for a career in acting at all.

If you don't stop using that needle, they will take away your music, put you in jail.

Is that poison with losing everything?

I've had several opportunities in my career to play characters inspired by real women, but Della Bea in Ray Charles was, they think, the first where I got to.

I drove out to Palm Springs with my boyfriend at the time, and we found her in this tiny town and spent hours and hours and hours with her, and she was credibly generous, and she really helped me to understand the character.

But Ray Waas an extraordinary experience.

It was my first time working with Jamie, who I adore is my movie husband forever.

I learned a lot making that movie, and it was the first time in my career.

You know, Save the last dance was a huge commercial success, and it was a bit of a phenomenon and pop culture.

But Ray was the first time that I was part of a film that was so critically lauded.

And it was the first time I ever went to the Globe's first time ever watch the Oscars and knew the people that were there was a very special time, big change in for me and my career.

Ray premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, so I'll never forget being part of it.

An elite festival circuit making sure that the film lived in the world in the way that the studio wanted it to, making sure that it was considered for awards, that many of us won awards and were nominated for awards.

I didn't really understand until that moment in my career why people called it a campaign.

But it's worked.

It's work to go after those awards, and I watched Jamie do it.

And then I watched it again with Last King of Scotland with Forrest Whitaker, and at that point I thought, Oh, I'm like a lucky charm like If you hire me to play your wife dead or alive, you're gonna win an Oscar.

So that was cool.

Here's the upside.

You don't love him.

No, you'll kill him and nobody's better at that than you are.

And then it'll be over.

I loved working on Mr Mrs Smith.

I really did.

I thought it was so fun.

I really love doing the stunt work and loved working with Angelina.

She is so smart, and that film went through a lot of changes while we were making the film.

Doug Liman is just a brilliant filmmaker but also like constantly inventing a new perspective, new ideas, new material.

So you have to be in a constantly evolving process.

I watched Angelina navigate that so brilliantly and just always have the right perspective about what was right for the narrative of the film and also in particular for her character was fun to climb a mountain with her.

It was fun to learn how to climb about.

I mean, one of the things I love about acting is that I get to learn to do so many new things all the time.

Like from dancing and save the last dance to shoplifting and lift Thio Joining a band Thio riding a horse in Django Like I'm now in little fires learning to be a photographer like I get Thio grow my own skill set by having to step into the shoes of another person.

If you don't do something now, I'm going to have to find a place to come.

I'm going to get it done in one of the villages.

Is that what you want?

No, you don't.

What did you do?

You don't do that.

That was one of the first project.

I didn't audition for forests and I actually decided to work with the same accent coach so that we were approaching the accent from the same perspective, the same tactics.

And then when I got to Uganda, I basically on Lee spoke in the accent all the time, and my goal was to just try to have it be invisible to the people around me and I spent a lot of time hanging out with the women.

They're just like trying to absorb as much of the sound and the music and the culture and the demeanor as possible.

A lot of people in Uganda at the time when we shot that film had a visceral memories from their childhood of media means.

So we would be driving to work one day and I would say, Well, why doesn't anybody take that road?

And might remember my driver saying, Well, that was a road radium means armies to kill people like it was just a matter of fact.

It was profound to be in a place where also, you felt like you were allowing people to tell their own story toe have their history be seen for the world.

And forest, of course, is so brilliant in the film.

When we got there, he started to transition and transform, and I did not see my friend forest again until we wrapped the movie.

There was this other sort of darker, more depressed and enigmatic version of a man that waas not man.

I know I love working with James McAvoy.

I think he is incredibly talented, and I remember one day actually, he was working so hard on that movie because he really carried that movie beginning to end.

The journey of his character was the ark of the film as brilliant as forced Woz, and he's deserving of every accolade.

James was our way into that world.

He was working so hard, and I remember a few of the actors and I We kidnapped James to take him on a one day safari while we were there because he wasn't taking advantage of this magical experience you were having living in Africa and he had a blast.

I have immense respect for him and admiration for his talent and his work ethic, and I think he could do anything.

And I'm dying to work with him again.

If you're listening, James McAvoy, maybe you could win an Oscar If you hired me to play your wife.

I have to be your life.

This is my net.

Want wants Erskine minds.

I'm informed.

This upsets Emma from here.

Victor voiced air.

I loved the experience of making Jango and it almost broke me.

It was I mean, I used to say it was the hardest thing I've ever done, but I actually I don't think that's true anymore.

But for a long time it was the scariest and hardest thing I have ever had to do as an actor.

To step into the legacy of slavery and be willing to stand in those places were slave.

I mean, we shot on actual plantations to make myself that psychologically and emotionally and physically vulnerable.

Waas a huge challenge and cost me a lot for a while in terms of my spirit.

But it also gave me the ability to feel like there was nothing I couldn't handle, not just as an actor, quite honestly, but in life.

I don't know if I could have walked through seven seasons of scandal without doing Django.

It really made me feel like I could do anything.

I have to credit my co stars to a lot of that.

Jamie and Leo and Christoph, they kind of surrounded me and took care of me.

They were immensely supportive and also just a lot of fun.

I will be forever indebted to Quentin Tarantino for trusting me with that role.

She is the siren in that film.

She is what he is questing for.

Quinton really trusted me to be worthy of the journey that Jango takes in The film entrusted Me Thio dance, so to speak.

Alongside Christoph is most of our scenes were together and stuff was massively supported with the German and and just in general.

So it was.

It was a really special project.

It was hard for all of us, forced us to find new levels of strength.

But we were all better for it.

And I think audiences can feel that commitment.

I mean, you look at Jamie's performance or Leo's performance, and you just know that everybody's heart was right out there on the table.

I am never going to be over you.

Your wife is that player house and she's about to explode your political career.

You'll never get re elected.

If you don't get her back, your time as president will be over.

And you're worried about getting your mistress back.

How many times do I need to tell you that you're more than that?

You want me on me?

Until then, we are done.

Scandal did not come to me.

Scandal Waas a CZ husband talked about a lot.

There had not been a black woman as the lead of a network drama in almost 40 years.

Every black actress and Hollywood wanted to be Olivia Boat, and when I read it, I I loved the script so much and I felt like it was mine.

But unfortunately I knew about 10 other girls that felt the same way.

It was pretty extensive.

Audition process.

I think.

I first met with Shonda and Betsy, her producing partner, and I remember actually Sean was saying, Are you up for television?

Because you have this really great film career and if this is a hit, we could be for all intents and purposes, married for seven years in my head, I was like, That's not happening.

What are the odds of that?

I loved Shonda and I loved the script, and I loved the world of the show.

I love Judy Smith, who was the inspiration for Olivia Pope, who was then called Olivia Price and the original draft.

I fought for it.

Remember I bought a suit for my audition.

I did not have the income to go out and buy myself a suit, But I did.

I think it Loman's in New York.

As an athlete would say.

I left it all out on the field in my audition.

I knew I did, but I still don't know if it was mine.