Kerry Washington: A Mirror on Life

In 1994 Kerry Washington was granted admission -- and a hefty acting scholarship -- to George Washington University.

She accepted, forgoing the chance to study at such renowned theater conservatories as the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama and the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, because GWU presented a single advantage: She wouldn't have to study acting.

Or at least not too much. Washington devoted most of her undergraduate days to a self-designed major that focused on anthropology, sociology and psychology.

"I feel like, if my job as an actor is to reflect the truth of the human experience, then I'm not going to be able to do a very good job at that if I don't understand psychology, if I don't have a real understanding of history and sociology," says the 31-year-old, who won critical acclaim for her performance in the 2006 film "The Last King of Scotland."

It was sociology that lured her to the role of a young wife in the new thriller "Lakeview Terrace," which stars Samuel L. Jackson as a hardened police officer who doesn't approve of his new neighbors' interracial marriage.

"One of the reasons I was drawn to the character was because, to me, she really represented an interesting black woman, sociologically speaking," Washington explains on the phone from California. "She's from this kind of 'Obama Age,' if you will -- of these young, progressive, open-minded people. She's college-educated; she comes from this upper-middle-class family. . . . I thought she was an important person to play."

The character resonated immediately with Washington, who has been in interracial relationships (she was engaged to actor David Moscow for a time), is a staunch and vocal liberal activist, and is willing to admit that, "God help me, I wore Birkenstocks all through college."

"Lakeview Terrace" presents another dynamic that Washington finds intriguing: that of the very bad cop. This film, directed by Neil LaBute, the prince of underhanded darkness responsible for 2006's "The Wicker Man" and 2003's "The Shape of Things," turns more than one heroic archetype on its head.

"I always used to joke around because one of my best friends grew up in Vermont, and where she grew up, the police were always the good guys, and where I grew up that was not the case," says the Bronx, N.Y., native. "And I was taught very early on those sort of politics, if you will -- even as a child -- of how to deal with the police, as an African American, as a person living in the inner city."

Washington has never been shy about her politics. She joined the 2004 Kerry campaign in Florida and this year has traveled the country campaigning for Barack Obama.

Which makes sense: Politics was a part of her upbringing in the Bronx.

But acting was not. The daughter of a civic-minded mortgage broker dad and college professor mom, Washington never planned on acting professionally, though she lapped up the limelight during community productions as a child.

College scholarships changed that, and by 2001 she was turning heads in feature films including "Save the Last Dance." Spike Lee's "She Hate Me" followed in 2004, as did "Ray," in which she appears as the wife of musical great Ray Charles (played by Jamie Foxx, who won the Best Actor Oscar).

It was "The Last King of Scotland," though, that propelled Washington into an upper echelon of serious young actresses. In it, she played the tormented wife of Idi Amin, Uganda's notoriously barbaric former president. (Amin was played by Forest Whitaker, who also went on to win the Best Actor Oscar, allowing Washington to count herself two for two.)

The actress, who will return to GWU next weekend for her 10-year reunion and to collect a Recent Alumni Achievement Award, says that it's surreal, that she feels like graduation was just yesterday and that, professionally speaking, she's just getting started.

Last year, Washington co-directed a music video for the hip-hop artist Common. "And I loooooooved directing," she gushes. "My poor manager couldn't get me to read scripts for, like, three weeks, 'cause I was sleeping in my edit room."

So there'll be more directing. And producing and developing and acting, of course, in the most varied, formidable roles she can land.

"What I hope, to be honest with you, is that I keep having the courage to expand my vision for myself," she says. "I'm really blessed with constantly having new goals and dreams, and I just hope that I continue to do that. And that I continue to show up for it."