USA TODAY International Edition
Kerry Washington gets a difficult dialogue going
In her Netflix film “American Son,” she explores hard questions about race, police and parenting
NEW YORK – Kerry Washington wants to get people talking with her new Netflix film “American Son.” ❚ The topical drama ( now streaming) is adapted from Christopher Demos- Brown’s play, which the “Scandal” actress performed on Broadway last winter with Steven Pasquale ( FX’s “Rescue Me”). Set entirely inside a police station, the story unfolds late one night as frantic mom Kendra Ellis- Connor ( Washington) and her estranged white husband, Scott ( Pasquale), search for answers about the mysterious disappearance of their teenage son.
Racial profiling and class issues boil to the surface as a white cop ( Jeremy Jordan) casually brushes off Kendra’s concerns about a potential police shooting. Later, Kendra and Scott go toe- to- toe over their perceived successes and failings as parents of a mixed- race child, debating the importance of his prep- school education, friend group and appearance.
Reading the script for the first time, “I thought it was so probing and provocative and explosive and moving,” says Washington, also an executive producer of both versions of the project. She wanted to bring the story to Netflix because “this conversation about our community and how we coexist and love each other across cultural divides is ( one) that should be had by everyone all over the world.”
Washington, 42, chats with USA TODAY about Netflix’s “American Son,” which was filmed on a Brooklyn sound stage earlier this year, and how her own experiences informed the character.
Question: “American Son” tackles themes we’ve seen many times before on stage and screen, including marriage, parenting, racism and police brutality. How do you feel it explores these topics in a new way?
Kerry Washington: I really loved that there are so many surprises in the material. I feel like there’s nobody who watches it and doesn’t find themselves thinking, “Oh, I thought that person was going to be a different race” or “I thought those circumstances were going to be different.” As audience members, we are forced to come face to face with our unconscious bias, and no one is immune.
Q: Do you think you could’ve played Kendra if you weren’t a parent yourself?
Washington: I don’t know. It’s interesting, the play operates on a few levels: There is a way that I am able to understand Kendra’s nightmarish journey because I am a woman and a
person of color and a child of black parents. I relate to a lot of who she is on a psychological, emotionally intimate level. But there is this other way I worked on accessing her that was equally important, which was more about the historical context of her pain; the trauma that’s embedded in the DNA of black parenthood, and has been for hundreds of years. I had a wall in my dressing room ( where) I used to put up images of either state- sanctioned violence against black bodies or violence that had been excused, celebrated or not held accountable toward black bodies.
So some of Kendra’s pain for me was ancestral, and that anxiety is in me as a parent or not. But obviously other parts of her are unique to motherhood, and I was grateful to be able to bring that to the work.
Q: Growing up in the Bronx, can you remember a time when you first became aware of racial profiling?
Washington: The messages I got were much more subtle as a kid. I had to sort of piece together the dynamic, but it was all around me for sure. Obviously, I was aware of it before college, but I remember my roommate ( at George Washington University) was from Vermont, and she was talking about the role of the police in her community. ( She said) if they were in trouble, they would call the police, and how she always feels safe when she walks into a situation where there’s police. And I was like, “Wow, there are people in the world who have that experience? That’s actually how they metabolize the presence of police?”
Q: Have you and your husband ( former NFL player Nnamdi Asomugha) discussed how to start some of these conversations with your own kids?
Washington: Yes. I have a 13- yearold, a 5- year- old and a 3- year- old, so obviously, they’re all very different kinds of conversations. But I want to take one step at a time and figure out how to walk in truth and reality while also living in love and joy. That’s the dance. And that’s the dance I wish Scott and Kendra could have figured out how to navigate.
Q: You’ve been politically and socially active throughout your career, including as a founding member of the Time’s Up movement. How has your activism influenced your work?
Washington: One of the things I really love about our work with Time’s Up is that not only has it allowed us to really protect and fight for equality and safety in the workplace for all women across all industries, but even within our industry, it’s allowed for real partnerships and sisterhood. Before Time’s Up, so many of us were in our siloed corners where we were told, “Oh, that one’s crazy and that one’s difficult.” We weren’t connecting with each other on the level that we do now, and it has allowed for a great amount of collaboration. I really love that.