Actress Linara Washington co-stars in Kings of the Evening with actor-model Tyson Beckford. She plays Lucy Waters, in Kings, a movie about a group of men, including Beckford, facing the challenges of urban life. Washington expounds on her acting background, her presence in Hollywood and details her role in Kings. –gerald radford
What’s your acting background?
I started professionally in 2000. I first went to school to be a doctor, I was a premed and biology major at the University of Chicago, but all my life I’ve wanted to act. From a very young age I participated in theater in Chicago … then got into more commercial work. I booked my first TV episode out of Chicago which was ‘ER,’ then I booked a supporting role in Barbershop 2 out of Chicago, which had me move to L.A. until that was done. Since then I’ve guess starred on every television show you can think of from ‘Close to Home,’ ‘Ghost Whisperer,’ ‘CSI,’ ‘Without a Trace’ … [and] over 50-60 national commercials and a handful of movies. I’ve been really blessed.
How have you gained so many opportunities, being a black woman in a sometimes exclusive Hollywood?
I’ve had a liberal arts upbringing and having learned other things, it’s just as helpful, because it’s all knowledge. … It’s amazing what I’ve learned being premed and how it has come into play … auditioning for roles … that’s the great thing about acting, it’s about telling the truth of your character and my experiences to date have helped me do that.
Talk about the film, and specifically, your role.
It’s a depression era film that follows the lives of these five people that live in a boarding house and how they all deal with their circumstances. Homer Hobbs, played by Tyson Beckford, finds himself living with these boarders trying to make something of himself, being just out of jail. On the weekends, the men gather together and put on a fashion show and the whole point of that is to allow oneself to feel a sense of pride and dignity, even though they’re living in a time where nobody has much of anything … the person who wins the contest becomes the king of the evening, but the true prize is the feeling of pride and self-respect.
My character, Lucy, [has] been running away from a rather difficult past … she married young, her husband got involved with drugs, they divorced and a gentlemen who used to have dealings with her husband is looking for him for his money, so he comes after [her] for the money he’s owed. He stalks [her] and even burns down the place where [she] works trying to get his money. [She] ends up having a love affair with Tyson’s character … those are the major points of the film.
