Due to the ongoing actors’ strike, we’ve recently been inundated with stories about the years some famous Hollywood stars—like John Cusack and Glen Powell, for example—spent taking small roles while they waited for their big breaks. We would never be so narrow-minded as to assume this was every major actor’s truth, however. In fact—in their heart of hearts—all some stars seem to want to do is go home, kick up their feet, and leave it all behind.
Unprisoned’s Kerry Washington belongs to the latter group, joining a small but mighty chorus that also includes Bullet Train’s Aaron Taylor-Johnson as of this Monday. “I have spent a lifetime trying to not be an actor,” she recently told W magazine in a pre-strike interview.
“I am always quitting this business, and then right when I decide that I’m done is when something extraordinary comes across my desk,” she clarified. “I was really, really done with this business right before I read the script for Ray. I was really, really done with this business right before I read the script for The Last King of Scotland. I was entirely done with this business before reading the script for Scandal. This is what happens again and again.”
For Washington, as it was for Taylor-Johnson, success tends to look a little different than simply nailing the next big credit. “I have moments where I feel really lucky, moments where I can’t believe that I’m in the room that I’m in, moments where I feel kind of awed by my life,” she said. “To have the incredible kids I have, and the amazing husband I have, and the career that I have. I have moments of feeling really awed, but I don’t feel successful—because I still feel curious and hungry and excited to continue to work and get better and do more.”
While the actor didn’t say it in so many words, Washington’s sentiments are clearly in line with the goals of the historic double strike, which she and some former Scandal castmates recently reunited for. It seems like it was the toxic culture—the “business” side, specifically—that kept forcing her to reconsider; the scripts, the creativity, and the writers behind them are what pulled her back in time and time again.
