Kerry Washington

Washington made her feature film debut in *Our Song* in 2000 (Wikipedia), a low-key drama that didn't exactly announce a superstar — but it was a start, and she kept working. Early roles in *Ray* (2004), where she played Della Bea Robinson opposite Jamie Foxx's Ray Charles, and *Mr. & Mrs. Smith* (2005) showed she could hold her own in both prestige biopics and big-budget studio productions. She also appeared in *The Last King of Scotland* (2006) and *For Colored Girls* (2010), building a filmography that zigged when other careers zagged. She played Alicia Masters in the live-action *Fantastic Four* films of 2005 and 2007 (Wikipedia) — not the most celebrated entries in superhero cinema, but they kept her visible during a period when she was clearly playing a long game. The long game paid off in 2012. *Scandal* premiered on ABC and, within a season, became the kind of show people talked about the next morning at work, on Twitter, everywhere. Washington's Olivia Pope — commanding a room in one scene, unraveling in the next — earned her two Primetime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Television Series Drama (Wikipedia). The show ran six seasons and didn't always stick the landing, but Washington's performance was the constant. Post-*Scandal*, she's don't seem to have slowed down at all. Her Emmy-nominated turn as Anita Hill in *Confirmation* (2016) was followed by another nomination for *Little Fires Everywhere* (2020), the Hulu miniseries she co-starred in alongside Reese Witherspoon. She made her Broadway debut in David Mamet's *Race* in 2009 and later starred in *American Son*, reprising the role for a 2019 Netflix adaptation (Wikipedia). Most recently, she portrayed Major Charity Adams in the 2024 war film *The Six Triple Eight* — a real historical figure, a real story, and exactly the kind of project that defines where Washington's career is pointing.