Award-winning actress Kerry Washington really knows how to stir things up — both on and off screen. The For Colored Girls premiere at Ziegfeld Theatre in Midtown Manhattan was a prime example. The celebrity-rich auditorium was filled with as much anxious energy as George Bush before an economics exam. But as Tyler Perry summoned up the all-star ensemble from For Colored Girls one by one, Washington decided to channel her inner LeBron James. She hopped and danced her way to the front of the theater, her celestial smile on full display and her moon-shaped eyes glistening with mischief. She gave Perry and each co-star over-the-top high-fives in a way that reminded you of LeBron’s circus-like introductions when he was a Cleveland Cavalier. Washington’s theatrics abated the tension in the room and left the packed auditorium howling with laughter.
It appeared as if the theater suddenly exhaled.
What most fans don’t know is that the Bronx-born bombshell that men need drool cups for and that women want to look like — can be exceedingly silly.
That moment of levity provides a synopsis of how Washington has successfully danced around conventional descriptions throughout her entire career and life. She has worked exceedingly hard to escape the confining clutches of the “black actress” category.
When you peruse her illustrious Hollywood résumé, you really can’t pick a single movie that can be characterized as a typical Kerry Washington film. What you can say is that Washington is a risk-taker. It made perfect sense that on her uninterrupted upward trajectory in Hollywood, she would make a stop starring in Perry’s screen adaptation of the groundbreaking and award-winning For Colored Girls. Actually, there really was no option — she had to be a part of this movie.
“[For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf] … really transformed American theater, it really did. It changed the way people thought about a Broadway play. It is such an important play in the history of black theater in this country,” she says as she noshes on a fruit plate in the grandiose London Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. “So, as a woman, as a person of color, as just an actress, this is such a pivotal piece in our canon.”
As with so many of her films, Washington fully immerses herself in the provocative and mind-tickling subject matter in For Colored Girls, playing a child welfare case worker who investigates reports of abuse. But, like many of the characters in the Perry adaptation, Washington harbors a dark secret as the wife of a cop (played by “CSI’s” Hill Harper). But this particular film, loaded with all-star thespians — including Phylicia Rashad, Janet Jackson, Thandie Newton, Hill Harper, Michael Ealy, Khalil Kain, Loretta Devine and Anika Noni Rose — is something that she‘ll cherish for the rest of her life. Every day on the set presented a pristine opportunity for growth, camaraderie and enlightenment.
Words by Terry Shropshire
Images by Kawai Matthews for Steed Media Service
