SmartLess - "Kerry Washington"

Episode Date: August 1, 2022

The incredibly talented actor/producer Kerry Washington joins us this week to give us a safer-sex education. Sean becomes our next Barbara Walters, Will makes a promise he’ll never break, while Jason confirms the level of college education in the group… and we’re just a few credits shy, folks. That’s why it’s called SmartLess. Kanpai!Please support us by supporting our sponsors!FanDuel - Join today with promo code SMARTLESS at https://www.fanduel.com/21+ in select states. First online real money wager of at least $5. $10 first deposit required. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable free bets that expire 14 days after receipt. See full terms at fanduel.com/sportsbook. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN), or visit www.1800gambler.net (WV).See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello listener. My name is Jason. I will be one of three hosts. I'm a non-time host. You're going to have a couple of tardy hosts joining us soon. If not, you're just going to get me. Just a solo episode with me. I hope that's not your future. But until then, let me tell you a little bit about myself. I'm a Capricorn, a Sage Moon. I love things sweetened with anything other than sugar. I've had addiction issues. I've got a handle on that. I think unless you put something sweetened with sugar in front of me, it's a real trigger situation for me. I just go right down a hillside full of sin. Oh, just in time. Here are the idiots. Guys, welcome to Smart List.

The listener does not know this, but this is our second episode today that we're recording. So what did you guys do in between shows? I had a little egg sandwich that I made myself, not an egg salad sandwich like Sean would have made. You had an egg sandwich. Now, what was the bread? Was it actual bread? Not really. It was gluten-free bread that I had to toast to within an inch of its life. So it tasted decent. And then I put a little fake butter on it and then the eggs on top of it. I'm pretty sure the eggs were real. We had a conversation with our friend on a different episode about enjoying ourselves and stuff. But it tastes great. I enjoy it. Now, last night we went out for a family dinner to this

yummy little restaurant down the street that specializes in Italian food. So I ordered a nice big fat cheese pizza and I whipped down more of that than probably I should have. And we had some pasta and I had... In BH or in the valley? Down in Laurel Canyon. Oh, a little patch. Yeah. Yeah. A little patch. Oh, you went, you went, not patch. No, I know. But I say, patch, you leave it off. That's how you know that you're legit. Well, you leave it off. Hey, there's Maeve and she can't hear us. Oh, wait, wait, that was... Hi, Maeve. That was Maeve. Oh, yeah. She's over here. Are you guys going for dinner tonight together? We're going to go and we're going to go over to our friend's

house and we're going to celebrate our friend Sean because he's... He had a birthday a while ago. Yeah. He had a birthday a while ago. And ends... I wish I could be there with you. I know. I know. I'm going to miss you. Well, you know, we'll FaceTime. You FaceTimed in last week. I'll FaceTime. I will FaceTime again. Yeah, FaceTime in again. I will. I will. This face? You got to give it time. Who's got time for that? Does the rest of your body... Is the rest of your body as dark as your face, Will? Yeah, yeah, of course. No, I didn't ask to see it. Put your top back on. I know. That is a tan like nobody's ever seen. It's really good. So, do you read though... You said you read three books while you were there.

Was it just for the bounce effect of the paper? Or do you enjoy reading? He just opens it. That's the sun takeover. What were the three books? Do you remember them? Were they all nonfiction? Were they all World War II books? The Giving Tree. No. Again. I haven't finished my third, to be honest. What were the first two? Were they just... Were they just airport fiction? Well, one of them is my dad's book, Bean Fate, which I finally read, which is amazing. I'm so proud of my dad, Jim Arnett, who wrote a book during the pandemic, and he wrote this sort of fictionalized, this novel based on history. Got it published. Got it published. That's cool. Yeah, it's really cool. And honestly, I was reading it. I was

just thinking the whole time. I'm like, I'm so... My dad did this. I'm so proud of my dad. Yeah. So it's called Bean Fate, and it's really, really good. This is about the Bean Farmers of Calamongas. No, no, no. I think it's not the... It's a remake of the Bean War or something, right? Calamongas. The Milagro Bean Filled War. Yeah, good for him. Because I don't think they really got it on the last one. So, okay. No, it's about booze runners back, you know, prohibition style, you know, back in the day. Up in Saskatchewan, in the Bronfman family, et cetera. So I did that, and then I read The Sympathizer. Have you guys read that? No. What is that? I feel like I wrote it. It's written by Vietnamese American

author, Viet Thanh Nguyen. It's about the Vietnam War. And it's about the Vietnam War. And he himself is a Vietnamese origin. Descent. Descent and origin. And he came here when he was young. And so it just talks about the experience of... God, honestly, I couldn't have loved it more. But it's not just about that. It's just about such an unbelievable story of, I don't know, just that guy who led a complex life. And there were so many... Are there colored pictures in it? For me? Any pictures of him sympathizing with folks? So many incredible, incredible passages in the book that just blew me away that I would have to read out loud. I'll check that out. Yeah, I'll bet you $1,000 that you don't.

You won. Now, how do you decide what you're going to read when you're on the beach there? Like reading in the sun makes you want to... What I do is, sorry, then I just started... I'm now reading this Splendid in the Vile, which a lot of people have read. These are big books. The sympathizers are one that put surprise. Reading in the sun, to me, it's like being trapped in a hot car with the windows rolled up, stuck, broken. I don't know when the driver's coming back. Kind of have a three-year-old screaming in my ear. That's what reading on a hot beach sounds like to me. Really? Yeah, because I'm already sweating and I'm still...

And I have to concentrate on words? Yeah, and I got the hard balance off the paper. No, I can't do it. And I got sunglasses on and other sweats dripping on the glasses. I got to keep wiping the glasses. And I hear all the people having fun in the water. Yeah, it's I can't. You know what, though? I'm snacky. I get real hungry on the beach. You know what's amazing is our guest today. Great segue. Our guest today is so fun. I love her. She's like a big megastar. I'm no big deal. Wait, I've got it. It's a woman. I've got it. I've got it.

She's been on one of the hottest primetime dramas in the last few decades. She's born and raised in the Bronx. She's a New Yorker through and through. This might give it away. At a young age, she performed with the award-winning Tadda Youth Theater Teen Group. She graduated college with a double major in anthropology and sociology. Not the right one. Before winning an Emmy, one of her earliest acting kids was, I got to ask her about this, a traveling sex education sketch group. Her last name is not only a U.S. state, but also an Apple. Please welcome the beautiful and extremely talented, Carrie Washington. Carrie! Hello, Carrie!

Let's get right into it. A traveling, what is it? A sex education sketch group. It was not sketchy, although we did sketches. We were, oh my God, that's where we're starting. Okay. I'm so nervous. We are not journalists. I'm such a mega fan of the show, so I'm really excited and a little nervous. No, Michael. Listen, we're just hanging out. Yeah, you can already hear what idiots we are. Well, every episode, but that's why we love you.

Bring us up. When I was a high schooler, when I was a teenager, I worked for the Adolescent Health Center in New York City at Mount Sinai Hospital, and it was like the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, like late 80s, early 90s, and we used to, we wrote these sketches, these skits about safer sex issues and losing your virginity and drug abuse and LGBTQ rights. So it was like, I find you attractive. I find you attractive. Hold on, let me get a condom. What was like, how do you ask your boyfriend to put a condom on? Or how do you put a condom on? Or how do you make that conversation sexy? Because all the research was like, people

have the information, but the behavior change is not there. So we used to write these shows. I'd love to hear the first few wishes. I would too. By the way, I've had, God, Carrie, it's like you gave me a bat and you put me at the plate and I've just been standing here and you've just been throwing softballs at me. I'm doing all of my best because I want to impress you. Don't hold back.

Don't hold back. No, because I don't want to be just a total dirtbag and I'm just like, man. Be yourself. Well, be yourself. It's hard. It's hard. I'm a guest in your house. Do yourself. What was the draft that made it to the stage on how to put on a condom in a funny, funny

way? Well, we used to teach kids how to put condoms on by using bananas, so that always got to laugh. But it was really more like, I mean, the first sketch I was allowed to do was actually a scene about whether or not I was 13 when I started doing the show. So the only sketch they would let me do in the beginning was should I lose my virginity or not? And it was a whole sketch about my really cute boyfriend who's kind of pressuring me

and I don't know if I should or shouldn't. And then the cool part, and this was actually incredible acting training, was that the problems of the show were unresolved and we would stay in character after the show and the audience would solve our problems. We would ask the audience for advice. So they would be in conversation. I love to stay in character. Yeah, we stayed in character.

Then doesn't that mean the show is still going? No, the show would end and then we'd do a Q&A, but our Q&A would be in character. And sometimes I would be playing more than one character, so I'd have a baseball hat for the girl who wasn't sure she should lose her virginity and then a red scarf for the girl who was needed to tell her brother stop selling drugs. So we had all these different conflict issues and I got to develop character backstory and learn to be spontaneous and I found my yes and while doing sex education. What was this group that sounds somewhat charitable and altruistic?

You're judging me. I hear you judging me. No, but it sounds like you're doing great thing. I wish I was doing stuff at 13 that was going around and doing a lot of stuff. What do we show us for like hospitals, didn't you say this was like? Yeah, we performed at like schools and community centers. How did you get involved in that? That sounds like you were walking around with a bunch of very nice people.

I have a great parents. I was really into acting and my mom had read that there were auditions for this. I had done children's theater with that company that was mentioned, which is a company in midtown. And this was like for teenagers and my mom had seen an ad about it and my mother's an educator. So she was like, educational theater is a great thing. And then I came home with all these pamphlets about like gonorrhea and she was like, what

is this? But I'd love to see the one act on gonorrhea. Don't worry about it. We're going to put a condom over a banana. It'll be all good. We're going to fix the world's problems. One banana at a time. Funny thing happened on the way to the theater.

Exactly. Wait, Carrie, let's I want to get this out of the, okay, guys, I have kind of a long story. I was wondering if we were going to tell the story. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're just going to get past it because how could we not do it? Should Will and I lay down?

I was shocked that you asked me to be your guest because I was like, there's no way we're not telling this story. Of course we're talking about it. Me being punked by Sean Hayes. So these guys have no idea what I'm going to say. So it's like, if you can hang in there for like two minutes, which is a long time, but it's a long story because here we go. It's one of the most embarrassing things that's ever happened to me.

I was shooting a pilot last year and it's a long, long email to Carrie asking her to help me out and let me jump in. Let me jump in. It's the nicest email I've ever gotten in my life. It's a great email. You know the notes you get from a fan where you're like, I should maybe call security because this person is like, really loves me. It was that, but it was like from another famous person.

So it was okay. And it was like somebody that I respect and admire. So I was like, oh my God. I was so moved. I was deeply moved. Likewise. I meant every word. And then there was the ask at the bottom of it.

Always, always. So, but she, Carrie emailed me back, asked for my number, said, I'd love to call you to chat more about it. Great. Fantastic. Wonderful response. At the same time, I was guest hosting a few episodes of Jimmy Kimmel show. And while there had befriended a producer named Aaron, Aaron Irwin, who's now a friend.

So one night I went home from the shows. I got a text from on my phone saying, I'm watching you on Kimmel right now and you're doing great. And I was pleased by the message, but I was like perplexed because I didn't recognize the number. And then I decided, and I deduced that it was Aaron from Kimmel who was maybe watching like a rough cut of the show because we just exchanged phone numbers as I left the studio, but I hadn't put her contact info on my phone.

Here we go. So I pulled over and saved the number in my contacts as Aaron from Kimmel. Now I'm at home, cut to, I'm at home eagerly awaiting the call from Sean because this is my number one fan. I mean, my dad doesn't love me this much. And now I think I'm going to, I'm going to get a healing because somebody who loves me is going to get on the phone with me and it's going to change my life. And even though I'm going to say no to the ask, we're going to be friends forever.

Right. Right. Perfect. Right. Big load of junk food just to prop you up. Perfect. All right. So the phone rings.

I pick it up and say, Hey, and I see it's Aaron from Kimmel. What's going on? Aaron says, Hi, how are you? Your email is so sweet. I couldn't wait to talk to you. And I said, email. What email? And Aaron says, the email I sent you and I was like, I don't remember sending you an

email. Are you sure? And Aaron's phone shifted between us and I, and I said, Aaron said, is this Sean? And I said, yeah, who's this? And Aaron says, you didn't send me an email with your number. And then I turned it to a total asshole and I go, I think you have the wrong number. Why don't you check that email and your contact, then why don't you get back to me? And that's when Aaron was like, that's probably a good idea.

So I go sit down, I hang up the phone and I turn to my husband and I'm like, I'm being fucking punked because Sean Hayes sent me the nicest email I've ever gotten in my life. I just got off the phone with him and he was such a jerk to me and he's acting like I made up the email. I was like shaking. I was so, I was like, why would somebody do that? Does he think I'm untalented? I was so upset.

I go sit down and talk to my husband and I'm chatting. I'm telling you, I just got the craziest phone call and at 15 minutes in the conversation with Scotty, I did all the math and like a, like a shot in a movie came zooming towards my face. I go, I jumped up and I screamed, holy shit, that was Carrie Washington. And credits. Yeah. Open credits.

Yes. I texted you back immediately, explained everything and asked, begged for you to call me back and I answered the phone and you were laughing. I was, I couldn't stop laughing because I was really like, I thought I was being pranked and I was so relieved. It was so, so lovely. Wow. God, that was funny.

Yeah. My feelings were so hurt. And I was like, I'm being gaslit. Like he's gaslighting me. You guys have this great, now this great, like shared history. Beautiful. Are you jelly? You're jealous.

A little bit jelly. Because we only, we had our dinner. We sat next to each other. We didn't know each other. And we sat next to each other. You were there. Don't say whoa. You were there.

Yeah. You were across the table. Yeah. But I mean, when you guys worked for me, you know, you guys have all worked for me as a producer. We worked for you when we did the facts of life. Live in front of a studio audience. Wait.

Who was at this dinner? What are you talking about? Jason and Will were at it too. You know how we, when we did it, we had a cast dinner to kick off for our episode, which I wasn't a producer then. So I have. Oh, that's right. You were a producer on the set.

That's right. But I produced them the next two. And so these two. Oh, sorry. Tell the listener what we're talking about. Oh, we're talking about your sister. For your sister. This makes me so happy.

I'm in the family. We, for Norman Lear's live in front of a studio audience, which all three of you have graced us and blessed us with your performances and those specials. And if it weren't for really active producers like you and Justin Thoreau, that show would not be moving at all. I do a lot more than Justin Thoreau. Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something.

I just want to put that out there. Justin Thoreau, and he must be nominated for free, you know, producer's Guild Award this year. Because I mean, this guy. And that means. He rolls up his sleeves and he had them. He would have. He would have rolled them.

If he had had any sleeves, he would roll them up for sure. What is it with your thing with people not having sleeves? No, just Justin. It's just Justin. Everybody wears them except him. Yeah. Every day of his life, he has it cut off. Sometimes people wear them.

Don't have them with the gym and stuff. But not everybody just doesn't wear them ever. Even basketball players now wear sort of like a under sort of long sleeve thing. Yes. Yes. With a cuff. You know what usually deters people from going sleeveless? Winter.

It usually gets people to pop into a sleeve or two. Not him. Not this guy. Mosquito infestations. It doesn't matter to him. He's fearless that way. He's fearless that way. Will be right back.

And now back to the show. Kara, one thing I didn't know about you was, by the way, what a story we will have for the rest of our lives. The rest of our lives. That double major, anthropology and sociology, A, why, if you knew at such a young age you wanted to act, and do you have you utilized those, that degree? This is a great question. So it's actually a little more complicated into that, but that's the easy answer that

I give people. I designed an interdisciplinary major called performance studies. And it was inspired by, it was based on the graduate programs at NYU and Northwestern. So it was like the study that performance plays in different societies and cultures. And that's what interested me. But you have to, to design your own major, you have to write this whole thesis and defend it because they want to just make sure you're not trying to get out of taking statistics. So I had to kind of really work with all these academic mentors and come up with this program

and design a curriculum for myself. And yeah, I'm just, I'm super interested in how we perform like professionally, all of us, but also how we perform just in our everyday lives. And yeah, I think I have used a lot of it. I mean, I think, you know, what we, for me, I tend to think about characters in the kind of social science context, like when I'm playing a character, I like to think about how she's become who she is and how she thinks and how she lives in the world and how society impacts who she is.

So I do feel like I use some of my, I feel like such a nerd, I've been talking too long about this. I do. I use some of my social science. I was about to talk about my character room that I have here and I go into my character room and I've kept all the costumes of my great characters, all my costumes. Yes, yes, through the years. Now, Kerry, I'm the dumbest of the four of us.

Will you define anthropology for me? Pause, pause. He is. Yeah. Go ahead. Anthropology is the study of society, yes? Sociology is more the study of society. There go the name.

Anthropology. Yes. Anthropology is. Anthropology is more about ants. Is this, is this just about ants and the ant culture, right? I mean, no. It's more, it's more, anthropology is more indigenous cultures and historical culture. So not present day society, but more the role of kind of how societies have evolved through

times. Sociology would be the modern day version of anthropology. Yes. More modern day. That's enough will. That's enough will. Anthropology has a little more ritual, like study of ritual. Yeah.

But it's also a fabulous story. See, there's my fellow dumb dumb right there. Hi. I like anthropology. I like their stuff. Well, you'd like the sympathizer. It's a great book. Oh, hey.

Actually, I'm kidding. So when did you go, it did. Did you go to NYU? Is that what you were saying? No, no, no. I look, they, those NYU in Northwestern were the schools that had graduate degrees in performance studies that I admired and was interested in, but I didn't actually want to go to graduate school.

So I tried to just skip ahead and do it in undergrad. I went to GW, G-Dub in D.C. Oh, okay. G-Dub. G-Dub. G-Dub. Now, did you finish with a degree in anthropology and sociology? I finished in a degree in performance studies.

I got to actually like, I wrote my own situation. Got it. I created my reality. Wow. Does anybody call you K-Dub? Yes, especially because I went to G-Dub. Yeah. Okay.

Just thought of that. Now, wait, are you the only one with a college degree on this chat? Yeah. Sean. Sean, what's your excuse? How far did you go? I went four years and then I got an honorary doctorate, but I never graduated. I got one of those too.

You just show up. I got one of those. Yeah. If you go to the beach, they give you one. You can get one of those guys. Sean, I don't understand. You went for four years. How did you not?

Isn't that how long it takes? That's a great question. I was two or three courses shy and I just did not have any more gas than me to go. Yeah. I'm fascinated because you seem like a completer too. I spend a lot of time with you and you seem to have a tremendous amount of gas. Yeah, plenty of gas. I especially with the amount of tuna salad you eat, are you getting with plain chips?

And he likes to fuse with that glass of milk and off he goes. Nobody kills a bag of plain chips in a glass of 2% milk. Did you really drink a glass of milk? Is it real milk? Like just like cow's milk? Yeah, all every day. He's going to get in his Plymouth and drive off in a minute. But wait, Sean, so you ran out of gas two credits short, Will, how far did you get?

Oh, I made it half a year. Half of the first year. Half of a year. Yeah, that's right. Because college to me wasn't all just about the studies. It's about the social, it's about growing up, being on your own and like figuring stuff out. I'd already been out of the house.

You know, I went away to school first when I was 12. Yeah. You heard this story on the show about your clothes being taken to across town. I was like, that's kind of child abuse, no? Yeah. And then they made them plant trees and fix sewer pipes, too. Yeah. We did a lot of stuff.

I mean, look, it's not that bad, believe me. But I was 12 when I left, so, oh, you got a bogey. He's running around in your house. That's Emily. I know. The bogey locations go to two? Guys. Emily's actually, she has listened to your show longer than I have.

Hi, Emily. Hi, Emily. They're saying hi. Hi, Emily. She's saying hi. I'm geeking out. She's geeking out. Emily.

When I was at dinner with you guys, when I was at dinner for the cast for a live in front of a studio audience, I actually had not listened to a single episode yet and I was embarrassed. And so I faked having listened to a few episodes. And I was able to do so effectively. You told me you loved it. She's got skills. She's a professional liar. I was able to, well, I'm an actor.

Yeah. But I knew just from hearing Emily talk about it and also hearing my husband, Namdi, talk about it, I had enough context clues and, like, reference points to pretend that I had seen, but I hadn't. I hadn't watched and listened. And so then I went home and felt bad, so I started listening. And then I was like, this is the best podcast ever. That's okay.

Jason, tell Carrie how much you love Scandal every episode. Yeah, yeah. I've seen as many episodes of Scandal as you have seen of Arrested Development, Sean. Ooh. I have watched Ozark. Now, well, thank you. Now, what do you guys do about that? Because we all know a lot of people and are friends with a lot of people that do a lot

of stuff and you can't possibly see it all. You can't watch it all. Yeah. Do you feel bad about that? Do you lie about it? Do you make an effort? I'm just, I'm terrible about it. Well, I've just admitted that I lie sometimes, but I try not to.

Yeah. I just really lie. And now all her friends, it's out there as they know that she just lies and that's fine. What I do is, you know, what's hard is, Sean, you know, this one is like when you go, when somebody says, I'm doing, you know, I'm in a show on Broadway or I'm doing a play or whatever, I'm always reluctant to go because you have to go and say hi to the master. Well, now, Carrie, talk about that. Oh, yeah.

I've changed Will since we talked about that. Like, I know somebody, I won't say her name, very extremely, gigantically globally famous who came to one of my shows and she didn't come back and I was like, I get it. We don't really know each other. Why would she come back? It makes me spiral. Yeah. When somebody doesn't come back, I, and I'm, maybe that just means I'm, I'm an insecure

person. I, it freaks me out. No, but how do you know that they're there? Cause that's the part that is. They tell you. So listen her for. The house manager tells you. So Tracy, when you're doing a show on, in New York, I think specifically in New York or

is it in Chicago too, Shawnee? Anywhere. So you, you end up finding out if there's anybody who has a SAG card that's sitting in the audience and whether you've invited them or not. SAG card, Tracy sidebar, Tracy, that's a screen actor's guilt card. Double Tracy sidebar. So if they don't come back, like you have to go back and say that you love the show. Even if you don't know the people in the cast, I just found that, that ritual to be weird.

Well, that's what it means. So I don't want to lie. So I just, I'm like, I just end up not going to stuff cause I want to. Cause you don't want to go and not like what you see and then have to lie about it. Cause I, I'm a. Oh, aren't you a person of integrity? No, I'm not. But can't you, but can't you go to a, to a show, can't you go to a show without anybody

knowing that you're there? I mean, like. Yeah. Which is why I go into my character room. It depends on the show and the audience. Like for me, I could never in my life go to a show that has a black cast and not. Go backstage. Go backstage because they will know that I'm there.

But wait a minute. You're saying if you were in a show and somebody in the audience is, has a sad card and doesn't come back, you, you take that personally? Yeah. There's an actor who I knew had come to see a play I was in called American son and he did not come backstage and unbeknownst to him, I held it against him for like a year and a half. I was like, I, I just thought how, like why, it was, you know, why, why, did you ever run

into that actor and ask him? Well, I then found out because I'm friends with his wife that she was the only one who had come and that she was running straight to the airport afterward and that's why she texted me. And so I was like, oh my God, I've been like, he's been dead to me inside my heart, snubbing him at parties. Yeah. He's been dead to me for a year and a half for no reason, you know what I'm going to

start doing? He's going, taking in a lot of theater and making a point of not going backstage, hanging around outside a lot for a while and then leaving and then going like, not only did he not come back, but he fucking, he didn't even run off. He was here. He was, he was here for a while milling around. What I learned in that is that I have to be more generous, right? Like, and I try to be more generous in my attitude toward people, but that was a really

good reminder of like, you don't know what's going on in people's lives. Right. When somebody really stubs you to your face, you don't know if they just had a car accident or like it just was a reminder, like be generous. Yeah, yeah. The world does not revolve around you and your Broadway performance. You seem constantly happy, sunny. You don't seem like a, like a, like a dark person.

What, what, what, what, what would get the, what would get the real ire up in you? What? When are you the, when are you the nastiest? Finally, we're going to meet the real Carrie Walsh. No. Is it traffic? Is it people that cut you off from traffic? No, no.

I'm not a traffic, because I'm not a very good driver. So I have to be generous when I'm driving. Yeah. What really pisses you off? You know what? Dishonesty, like to circle back, like if I feel like I'm being gaslit or people are keeping information from me in that way, you know how like people really like to infantilize actors? Like they don't want to talk to the talent, they don't want to tell talent things or like

just in my life, throughout my life, whether it's through, because of my acting way, if I feel like people aren't being honest with me, it really upsets me. Yeah. This is what makes you a good producer, right? Yeah, maybe. Somebody who's like holding the information and then sort of disseminates it throughout the production, you understand what a, what a value that is and how bad it is when you're on the other side of that, not getting it.

Carrie, by the way, I can relate to that. I'm like, tell it to me straight. Yeah. Yeah. Just let me know. Just let me fucking straight and let me, I'll decide how I react. By the way, honestly, Will, if you come to see me in something like, let's say, accidentally, you stumble upon a play that I met on Broadway, you don't know I'm in it.

Yeah, sure. If you came backstage and you said, I'm not crazy about this one, it would, it would make me feel closer to you than you leaving and I, I appreciate the transparency. I'm making this pledge to you today. You're going to tell me when I suck. I will always be honest with you. I will always be straight up with you. Thank you.

About what I think about where you're at. And I want you to know that. Thank you. And forget performance on stage and in your life. Oh my God. This is amazing. Carrie, the worst thing, wait, really, the worst thing anybody could ever say when they come backstage, boy, it looks like you're having a lot of fun up there.

That's the kiss of death. That is the worst. Or like, or they're like, you guys did that. That was, you did, wow, you did that. You did this how many times a week? Yeah. The thing too is it's so, you're so vulnerable. When you're on stage, you're so, there's no edit room.

There's no score to hide the moment that wasn't fully honest. Like you're just so vulnerable up there. So I think that's probably why it was also like a little more raw than usual. Yes. Now in the world of not being told everything that maybe they should be told in the world of series, television, Tracy, oftentimes actors will not be told how that particular season is going to end. Now, you're a producer on that show.

So you probably have more access to storylines, but have you had that instance with the head writer about, let me know what my finish line is as an actor so I can calibrate what the arc is to get there instead of waiting to read each episode piecemeal. Yeah. I was not a producer in the beginning of Scandal. I became a producer later on in the life of the show. And director. Yes, and director.

And my favorite example of not knowing was we had a guest star named Joe Morton. And Joe Morton is an actor I'm a huge fan of. He did an incredible John Sayles Film Club brother from another planet. Oh, I love Joe Morton. He's so good. So he's a stellar. And he came out. He was like the one guest star that came on our show that I called home to mom and dad

and was like, oh, I got Joe Morton's on the show. And I was never in scenes with him. He was always in scenes with these other characters on the show. And every table read, I'd be like, God, I really hope that we can do a scene together. And he'd be like, me too, me too. And I knew that he had been in talks to do Romeo and Juliet on Broadway. And he had dropped out of that to come to Scandal. And I was like, he doesn't even get any scenes with number one.

Like, why did he drop out of his play on Broadway? He's got no scenes with me. Like, why did he do that? And I just was super like, what's going on? At the end of the scene, the very final line of that season was I get in a car. Joe Morton is sitting across from me and he says hi. And I say with a question mark at the end, dad, because he was my father on the show. And he knew from the beginning, from his first phone call with Shonda Rhimes,

he knew that he was going to be my dad. And I didn't know until our table read of that episode, like live in the room with everybody. It was incredible. Yeah, so wonderful. It would have been cool if they'd pulled like a Star Wars and didn't tell you until you were actually filming the scene, right? That would have been amazing.

Is that how it happens in the scene? Star Wars? Yeah, Empire Strikes Back. Well, do you mean in the movie, but not on set, right? No, on the set. Darth Vader just blurbed something else and then in post, they put, you are Luke, I am your father. No.

So that the crew didn't know nobody knew until the movie came out, right? Mark Hamill knew? I think Mark Hamill knew, yeah. Wow. Isn't that wild? They were trying to protect the crew from leaking that to the fan base. Yeah. I think that's what I said.

I don't know. Hey, Sean, any more tidbits from fucking The Winter Circle? Seven years ago. Also, what about Chris Kline's audition process for Star Trek? Let's bring Scotty in to give us some light on that. Do you know that the bridge on the Enterprise actually wasn't a bridge at all? Was scandal the first thing that kind of changed your trajectory? Or was it something else that made people really take notice?

Or do you think that that's the thing that really launched you? That was the thing. I mean, I had a really great film career before that because I had been in, like these Oscar nominated films. Like I had a joke that if you hired me to play your wife, you would win an Oscar because I was with Jamie Foxx and Ray and I was in Last King of Scotland with Whitaker and so I had done, but nobody connected that the girl from Save the Last Dance was the girl from Ray.

I was kind of a character actor and it was sort of disappearing into these really fun, very different films with accents from all over the world. But TV is just different, especially before streaming. TV was a different beast where all of a sudden I was in people's living rooms every single week. How many people do you have in your life that you actually spend an hour with every week other than your shrink? Not a lot. So it's a very intimate relationship.

I'm talking to you, Sean. I'm talking to myself and myself. So it did definitely changed my, like it changed, you know, sort of the level of, how I walked in the world maybe or like level of fame or whatever. Yeah. And were you scared to step in a role of leadership like that? Or was it finally like, was it like finally, oh my God, this is like what I've been waiting for to be like the number one on the call sheet kind of thing?

Well, I really, there was all this pressure because at the time there was all this talk, every interview was about the fact that in almost 40 years there had not been a black woman as the lead of a network drama. Every article in the beginning, that's what. And so, and I was like 37 or something at the time. So in my lifetime, I had never seen a black woman as the lead of a network drama. And so that's all my pressure was my fear of like, if I screw this up, they're not going to let another woman of color be the lead of a network drama for another 40 years.

Like I knew that we had to get it right. And I just had to work as hard as I'd ever worked on anything in my life. But luckily I've worked with amazing number ones. Like Jamie Foxx is the best number one in the business. No offense to you other number ones on here, but he's just the king. No one's better than Jamie Foxx. Jango Ray, like having worked with him in those, he's just a fun, he's so generous. He's a team leader.

He's a coach. He's a cheerleader. He's everybody's dad. And so you picked stuff from him. Yeah, I tried to collect like Forrest Whitaker is a beautiful number one. Julia Stiles is an incredible number one. Like I just tried to remember the things that I admired about the leaders. Love Julia.

The good leaders. She's so great. So great. Oh my God, Jango and Shane is one of my favorite movies of all time. You are unbelievable in that. And I've seen it so many times. It's, it's always Quentin has Quentin Tarantino has is great at the theme of revenge. Right.

And that thing I watched whenever I watched that movie, it's disturbing to see you. That character. It's so disturbing. Any kind of fun Quentin stories. I mean, I love that he inserted himself in there and that one scene. It was so fantastic. Wait, which one? I forget.

I got a call. I was asleep in my apartment in New Orleans. We were like halfway through filming. And I got a call at like two or three in the morning and I pick up the phone. It's like, I was like, hello. And I hear Leo de Caprio and Jamie Foxx being like, yo, we need to talk. And I was like, what's happening? And they were like, Quinn wants to be in the movie.

I was like, what? So at that like unfolded in the middle of shooting, we were all shocked, but it was great. He was. Yeah. So Jay just remind you in the, in the movie, he intercepts like the transfer of the, of the collected slaves, right? Yeah. And, and, and freeze them or something.

I can't remember. I'm so bad about remembering movies. I swear. Me too. I don't remember. Last week and forget the entire thing. Same. Same.

Even movies. I've been in. I don't remember movies. I've been in. I don't remember. I like to think it's for a positive reason that like maybe we're so good about getting completely inside that world that once you leave that world, it, it stays over there. I don't, I don't know.

You don't remember. It's kinda like, it's like, you know what I mean, do you have an easy time memorizing lines though? Yeah. Jason does And do they stay with you? Or do you forget them? No, I can drop them just as easily as I, as I learned them.

But like it seems like all my memory skills have just been channeled into that one very narrow lane. It's, it's not, it's not great. Yeah. And now, a word from our sponsor. And now, back to the show. Kair, what if I had, if I answered you, I mean, if I asked you this question

and you had to think of something really, really fast. Okay. Who's one or two of your favorite actors of all time that you worked with? Meryl Streep. And, um... Controversial. Yeah, well, I'm being honest.

Not a lot of people agree with you on that whole talent assessment thing. What TikToks has she been? Have we seen her on a TikTok? What TikToks has she been on? And, I mean, it's hard. There's so many. You can't talk, Jamie Foxx. I love that that was the first one.

And Jamie. I love Jamie. Yeah. Yeah, I just love him. I love him. What was your first paid acting gig? My first paid acting gig. I played a cheerleader.

I don't think I had a name. I think I was like cheerleader number two in an ABC After School special called My Special Angel. Oh, wow. I think. Who was the angel? I don't know.

I don't remember. I may have done a PSA or something before that. God, After School specials. Remember those? After School specials. Jason, did you ever do one? An After School special? I don't know if I did an After School special.

I did a few movies of the week. Those were good. Remember, there used to be a CBS, NBC, ABC. They all used to make their own movies in it, right? Yeah. Sunday night. Yeah. Yeah. Now it's like Hallmark Channel does those in lifetime. That's great.

Wait, so, Kara, and the other thing that I went on and on about before, but I'm going to do it again because you're so amazing, was American Son on Broadway, which I didn't get to see because I was doing something. Yes. But I later to see it on Netflix. From Sis Promises? So, first of all, it was such an ingenious idea

to film the play like that. It was like a hybrid of stage and film. I'd never seen anything like it. Your performance was off the chart. Like it was amazing. You're allowed to do that? You can film a play on Broadway? No, it was.

No. So, really, the reason I came up with that idea was because I loved producing. I love producing. I fell in love with producing at Scandal. And the first film I produced was a film called Confirmation for HBO where I played Anita Hill. And then I fell in love with it.

And so, they came to me to do this play on Broadway. The producers and I said, sure, I'll be in it if I can help produce. But on Broadway, producing really just means finding money. You get to be a creative producer as well, but I was like, oh, I don't do the financing thing. I haven't done that. But I was like, okay, I'll jump in and I'll try.

And one of the ideas I had for how I could make the money to help produce the play was like, what if we film it? What if we can sell it to a streamer? Sell the rights. So Netflix, you know, Ted read it and loved it. But, Jay, it was filmed not in a proscenium. It was filmed. We built us on stages.

We built on stages. We kind of like built a fourth wall to complete the room because the play all takes place in one room. And so we just completed the room and shot it on a stage in the one room. Your performance was just mind blowing. It means so much coming from you. Thank you.

It was. Not that much, but I really want to see it. I really, really... By the way... It's on Netflix. I'm going to watch it. Do you have an account? Well, I share it with like 20 people, but I'm going to watch it.

And then I'm going to get your number from Sean. Okay, good. And I'm going to text Aaron from Kimmel what I was going to say. You might be texting Aaron. And I'm going to be honest. Now, Kerry, where are you right now? Are you home?

Are you traveling? Are you on location somewhere? I'm not home. I'm on location because I'm doing... We're doing a new YouTube series at my company called The Street You Grew Up On. And it's something I started in pandemic because my production company is named after the street

that my mother grew up on in the Bronx, Simpson Street. And when we were kids, we used to hear all these stories about all the shenanigans that went on in Simpson Street. So I feel like that's my once upon a time. My grandparents came to the states through Ellis Island. They immigrated from the Caribbean and they lived in the Bronx. And Simpson Street was like where it all started,

where the dreams began. So I interview people that I really like and respect and admire other than the three of you and about the street that they grew up on. How do you have room after the three of us? I don't know. So yeah, and I asked them questions about the street they grew up on and what their childhoods were like.

That's really cool. Yeah, it's fun. So we're doing a bunch of them today. You know what I always wanted to do, but you can, by the way, you can have this idea if you want. Eat an entire carton of ice cream by yourself and then do it again right after? Yeah.

And? Yes, and? It's like similar to that idea, which is go visit with a celebrity the places they lived before they made it, right? So like go back to their apartment and knock on the door and interview the family that lived there, that lives there now and kind of swap stories

about how you lived when you were there. And I think it would be really cool. All the apartments and whatever. I have a dream about maybe next season going to some of the locations with our guests. The stories are incredible. But think about the stories you'd get from the people that lived there. Yeah, the people that live there now.

You're like, you're like our next Barbara Walters. Wait, so the first, the first question, the first question that I ask everybody is to learn the name of the street that they grew up on. I asked their porn name. So I want to know the name of your first pet and the street you grew up on. So can I, I want to ask you three your porn names,

not your actual porn names that you have used in the past because you have those pets. Pat's first name and your first pet. First pet for me was a little bird that was a cinnamon color. And so he was called Siney or she was so. And then the first street was Emerson, Siney Emerson. There you go.

That's kind of cute. Sweet little Siney Emerson. That's my middle name. Emerson's my middle name. Siney Emerson receives a lot in these porn. Not a lot of giving. Mostly catching. She's good at it.

Yep. Catches bird flu. Real passive. Will, what about you? We had a cat. Well, catch me. You don't have to explain the story. Just what's the name of your first pet on the screen.

He got to talk about the stupid fucking bird. And receiving and catching up. You guys are like my kids. He got to do it. It would be Minu Edgar. Minu Edgar. Now Minu Edgar is giving a lot of pain on these porn. Siney sees Minu coming and just starts running.

Mine's Josh Valley. Josh Valley. What kind of animals named Josh? Your pet's name was Josh. My dog's name was Josh and I lived on Valley Avenue. Your dog's name was Josh. Why did you name your dog Josh? I didn't name it.

My dad did. Oh, this guy. No, Carrie, what was yours? Mine. The best was that I interviewed my mom for this series. And I was like, you didn't have any pets, mom, did you? And she said, no, no, we did. We had a cat named Big Boy.

So my mom's, my mother's poor name is Big Boy Simpson. That's fantastic. Siney just exploded. I had Hamsters named Trick and Treat. And I grew up on Pugsley Avenue. So Trick and Treat Pugsley. Also very active. Trick and Treat Pugs is, wow, that's so cool.

I love that. And that's how you launch into this series. That's how we start each episode. That's great. I love that. So in a perfect balance, then how often are you working? How often are you home? Like how often do you like to be bored throughout the year?

Because I think boredom is the route to relaxation. If you can try to find. I think you're right. So I'm not very relaxed these days because I haven't been very bored. This is the main theme of my therapy these days is figuring out how to schedule more like open creative time because I am a doer. Like I really like to be busy and I like to accomplish things and feel like I'm being productive and useful in the world.

But I also really, really love my family and spending time with them and being able to read a book on the beach. I'm with the reading the book on the beach team. I do. Thank you. I do. I'm with that. That's the worst.

Or even listen an audio book. Sean, what if you were in like in a nice cabana, right? We got nice breathable fabric around three sides of you. We got a nice roof over the top. We've got some sort of a frosty drink. You're in Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. I'm going to be thinking. I know what you're asking.

Could I read a book then? Yeah. And you got a nice fan on you. Maybe there's even a portable TV. The fan that has the mist. Oh, believe me. Sean's never met a fan he didn't like. Okay.

Sean, that would work. Right? Well, let me, I'm going to ask you the same question. You know that. It probably wouldn't because I'd be distracted right by the beauty and the breeze and I'd want to like go do something, not sit. You can't sit still. But here's the other thing.

But it's not the whole day. It's just like a section of the day where you get the disappearing too. Kerry, what you need to understand is Sean can't sit still and not fidget like and do that and read a book. Anywhere. However, I have been with him on a return 14 hours each way flight to LA to Istanbul where he played Candy Crush the entire fucking time. Yeah.

So he can just do, by the way, calling that a game is like fucking, you know, like calling a pamphlet. It's just like, Why don't you just rip the door open and jump out somewhere over the Atlantic and just like, how could I still be engaged with this eight hours? I'll never forget that flight too because they fed us 80,000 pounds of food. Like, yeah. Just did not stop serving.

Were you guys sitting up front? I remember, I remember eating, I'm sorry, I remember sleeping like for like six hours at one point and then waking up and being like, oh man, I really, I'm looking and Sean's got it. Same position. Is that your meditation is candy crush your meditation check out and like, I love that. Yeah. That's, that's what I'm addicted to is like the solace of that.

Well, they work hard on that. They work hard all those games to, to control your brain. I know. By the way, they can have it. And right. Oh my God. Don't worry. Turns out they, they claim there wasn't much to grab.

They took what they could. They really candy crushed my brain. All right. So listen, we're going to let you go soon. I promise, but I want you to talk about the prophecy podcast. What is it? Cause it sounds amazing. You're starring in it.

You're EP on it. And it stars Lawrence Fishburne, Daniel Day Kim and David Oye Loa. Oh yeah. I want it. So I also, I want to thank so many of, a lot of the folks that I work with wanted me to do this podcast even more than I, I mean, I really, I'm such a Uber fan, but my, there's a guy on my team named Will who was like, we have a podcast with me on prophecy. So you, yeah, it's a bad name, but he sounds brilliant.

Will was like, because we're doing a podcast, we have to be on the best podcast. So that is part of why I'm so happy to be talking to you guys. So prophecy is it's a, it's a narrative podcast on audible. It's a really cool concept. The concept is like, what if the Bible wasn't a document about things that people thought happened in the past, but what if it was a prophetic document about things that were going to happen in the future? And so I play this woman, this scientist who winds up being pregnant and I don't know

how cause my husband can't impregnate me. We know that. And, and my name is Virginia Marylin, so like Virgin Mary. And there's a, there's a scientist named Jonah who gets in a situation with a whale and stays alive for three days. And there's a guy named Daniel who's a zoologist who ends up in a lion's den and they don't kill him. And it's kind of like these biblical happenings are popping up and what does it mean and how

do we deal with it? It's very cool. It's a great idea. Like sci-fi. Very much. And has that yet been optioned? We, well, a part of why I wanted to, I'm in this deal with audible to create podcasts in the narrative space.

And I feel like it's a really good way to test out story and figure out, is this limited? Is it a film? I think this one is a film. Great show. It's cool. And is the idea then to like, maybe if it goes well, make it up actual series? Yeah. Yeah.

Or film. I think it might be a trilogy of films. That's really cool. I'm not sure. I would watch that. Yeah. I would watch it too. I mean, let me look at my schedule.

What are you, how long is the shoot? Start, start. Oh, oh, do you want to be in it? Yeah. How do you feel about self-taping, Will? I want to be fucking number, Carrie, you were talking about number ones and I'm like, what is she working towards here? What is she trying?

And I'm like, oh, here it comes. Here comes the pitch. So the number one, then she pitches the show and it could be a movie actually and then she looks right at me. I'm like, here we go. All right. So tell me, I'll tell you what, do you know I'm at CAA, launch some numbers our way and let me look at the schedule.

Give us something to react to. Let me see. We'll fit it around your golf. Unbelievable. We'll shoot around your golf. Yeah. That's true. That's a good point.

Carrie Washington, you know how much I love you. You got the email. I love you. You're the best. I love you so much. You guys are amazing. I love you all and I'm a massive, massive fan as you all are. Can I just say, I want to say as somebody who like, this is what we do all the time.

We have to talk to people and we do these interviews. It's so real. I can tell every time I listen that people are, they don't want to get off with you. They're like, they love these interviews. It's a good time. They don't want to leave. Bye. People don't want to leave.

Bye. She did it. That was perfect. She's so fine. She's so fine. So good. Wow. No one has ever self-fied before.

Wow. That was great. Kerry Washington, DC. Kerry Washington. Oh, she had the full district in Columbia. Yeah. Yeah. So it's Kerry Washington.

Wow. Not a lot of people know that. So she's a dream. Kerry Washington would actually be the great name for a, like just like a detective series too. Kerry Washington, like that's the name of her character. Yes. Kerry Washington.

No, no, no. But you'd spell it C-A-R-R-Y because trying to like keep watching Kerry. Like she's carrying a lot. Yeah. Like trying to keep people cold on her shoulders. Yeah. Yeah. She's got to carry one.

Oh my gosh. By the way, let's page her. Get her back on. Can you call her back? Yeah. We'll call. Well, Sean doesn't have her number, but. Email her, Sean.

Isn't that the dumbest story? Sean, that story is so fucking. It's so good. I mean, it's so embarrassing. It's so unbranded for you. By the way, you just made the leap. I love that Aaron was on the other end of that. Yeah.

And that Aaron, Aaron's the other person. Did you? And obviously Aaron knows the story. I think I told her, yeah. Yeah. Who's the best? It's so good. Wait a minute.

What about how great she is? And she's so, she's so delightful and so smart and so gorgeous and so talented and so real and normal. Yeah. I know I said that about every guest of ours, but like I can't stop. That's the thing when you're surprised to me, because we know there's a lot of people in this business and in Washington, a lot of other businesses, whatever, that you never get like the real them.

And that's the real her. Yeah. And so at that dinner, we talked about that cast dinner, Jay, when you're like, what dinner did you have? When you were, you literally sat across. Jimmy. You literally sat across from Karen. I came back to me eventually.

We were Jimmy's. But we were, so we're at Kimmel's and she, and I didn't know her at all, but she was producing that thing that we've all done. And I had the same, I had the same reaction. I was like, man, she is so cool and comfortable with who she is and her own skin and so real. And you're getting, you just had the sense that you were getting this genuine person. And she was a delight. We laughed a ton.

She was great. Yeah. Except for she lied about watching them listen to the podcast. She's a dirty liar. She admitted it. Yeah. She's a dirty liar. Maybe she should do an arc.

She's also like. She's also really funny. Like she should do more comedy. She is. She's so funny. Why are we so surprised every time we meet somebody nice and normal in this business? Yeah. Because we know too many of the others.

But maybe, maybe that's just a vestige of what this business was and now we ought to just embrace the fact that there are actually a lot of really nice, normal people in this business now. Yeah. I don't know if it's a, it's a thing. It's not necessarily. I never mean the business. I just mean the life.

Salt of it. But it's maybe, maybe it is. We get, there are bad people because maybe it's just a bye product. Bye product. Bye. I didn't even see it coming. I didn't even see it coming. Bye product.

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