The indie drama Life is Hot in Cracktown gives Kerry Washington a chance to play a really risky performance. Marybeth may sound like the name of a generic hottie for her to play, but she is actually a trans gender woman. She’s also pre-op so in her first scene, we see how she tucks her junk between her legs. Of course, to the interview she wore a glamorous dress and sleek high heels, which is more like we’re used to seeing her.
Crave Online: How many people have asked about your fake package today?
Kerry Washington: [Laughs] I’ll say you’re not the first.
Crave Online: What have been the best questions?
Kerry Washington: What was it? Everybody wants to know what was it? It’s movie magic. I can’t tell you everything. I can just tell you it wasn’t really mine. That’s what I’ll tell you.
Crave Online: Did you have to de-Femme your features?
Kerry Washington: That’s such an interesting way to put it. I don't know if I would put it that way. There is this complicated issue of portraying somebody who is born a woman but whose anatomy has in some ways betrayed them. So there is the complicated issue of how you articulate that physically so there were lots of meetings and discussions and explorations about how to do that.
Crave Online: What was your experience in the trans gender community?
Kerry Washington: I love research. I really thrive on doing research to prepare for a character. It’s one of my favorite parts of acting so I do a lot of reading and watching documentaries and interviewing experts in whatever field it is I’m studying in preparation. I also was very lucky that I found this amazing woman named Valerie Spencer who’s a trans woman who became my consultant on the film.
Crave Online: What was the one thing she wanted to make sure you got right?
Kerry Washington: I don't think I could say that there was one thing. It’s really a community and so any anthropologist will tell you there are so many specific details that make up membership to that community. So it was really about trying to absorb as much of that as possible, but she was very generous with her life. We spent a lot of time together and we hung out and went to dinner and I went to church with her. She brought me into the community so I was able to meet a lot of trans women.
Crave Online: What’s your favorite thing about Marybeth?
Kerry Washington: I guess I think it was really brave and courageous for Buddy [Giovinazzo] to take this person that is a disenfranchised member of society. They call her a freak in the movie and he took this person and made her the emotional center of the film. That was the thing that really drew me to her, that she’s this person that we normally think of in sort of stereotypical frameworks, but she became this really complicated, layered, accessible human being. I think that’s what drew me to playing her.
Crave Online: What do you think draws us as an audience that draws us to films about people in horrible situations, that we want to experience them?
Kerry Washington: I think in some ways, we come from a long tradition. As human beings, we’ve always had traditions of storytelling, whether it was sitting around a fire in prehistoric times, but we’ve always told stories. In some ways, filmmakers carry the new tradition of storytelling. We have a lot to learn as human beings from watching stories that reflect our happiest times but also watching stories that reflect our darkest moments. Both of those conditions allow us to move closer to the full spectrum of who we are as people.
Crave Online: You do get in moods where you want to see Cracktown instead of Star Trek.
Kerry Washington: That’s right. You know, I love When Harry Met Sally as much as I love Schindler’s List. They speak to different parts of my truth as a human being.
Crave Online: How do you work up to a rage, a real yelling, screaming, crying scene?
Kerry Washington: Oh, it’s always different. I have different tools in my toolbox. The funny thing about being an actor is that somebody who plays the violin or plays the piano, their instrument is fairly stable. You do have to tune a piano and tune your string instruments, but as a person, I am my instrument, as an actor. So you have to be constantly figuring out how to bring out the best in yourself as an actor. I change all the time. We all change all the time so it’s going to take a very different thing today to get me to a screaming, raging moment than it would have three years ago in my life because I’m different. It’s an interesting question. You really have to stay willing to work on yourself and work on your skills as an actor.
Crave Online: What was it for Marybeth then?
Kerry Washington: God, I was just listening to that answer and I would say all of that’s true and the big thing is you want to be able to believe the given circumstance of your character. You want to really try as much as you can to just believe that what’s going on for that character is reality. So for Marybeth, I think it was trying to ask myself how would I feel in this situation and what do I know about that? I don’t know what it’s like to be a trans woman but I certainly know what it’s like to be in relationships where I don't know if it’s the right relationship for me. I certainly know what it’s like to love somebody and be afraid to lose them or to feel betrayed by somebody I’m close to. So even though I can’t specifically identify with all the details of her situation, I can relate to emotional truths and try to lend my own history to that moment.
Crave Online: When did you know you’d made it?
Kerry Washington: I don't know that that’s happened yet. I know I felt very proud the day I made enough money to get insurance from the Screen Actor’s Guild. That was a big deal. I remember calling my parents because that meant that they didn’t have to put me on their insurance anymore. Yeah, I don't know if I think about it in those terms. I certainly don’t think I’m done or that I’m living the easy life as an actor.
Crave Online: Some actors say just working is making it, and you definitely work.
Kerry Washington: I would say that’s true. I’m really happy to be a working actor.
Crave Online: What is it like to be Kerry Washington right now?
Kerry Washington: It’s exhausting right now. There’s a lot going on so it’s a little bit exhausting but also thrilling. I’m a little bit tired today and that is coupled with the fact that I really love my job and I really love my life. So it feels worth it but I’m doing this film called The String Bean and Marcus that starts in Philly in a week and a half, so I was in Philly doing rehearsals and fittings for the last three days, so I got in really late, like 1:00 a.m. and had to get up at like 5:00 to start all this. I’ve got to fly back to New York for a L’Oreal event today and come back for a screening of Cracktown on Saturday. It’s exciting and thrilling and I feel really lucky.
Crave Online: It is a nice way to get exhausted.
Kerry Washington: Yeah, but how cool, exactly. We just got back from Cannes which is great because L’Oreal sponsors the Cannes film festival, so all of the girls always go which is super fun. We’re pretty close actually, like Eva and Doutzen, we all actually get along, so it’s really fun to be there, to be celebrating film and to be representing the company.
Crave Online: What does L’Oreal add to your career and craft?
Kerry Washington: In some ways, I feel like the L’Oreal gig really frees me because it allows me to sort of maintain this image of a movie star, of a pretty girl, but I get to do risky work where I play a trans gendered woman and a prostitute in The Dead Girl. I get to make risky, challenging choices as an actor.
Crave Online: Is it good for your ego that L’Oreal picks you as one of the top three women to represent them?
Kerry Washington: L’Oreal has like 20 spokesmodels so you’re not one of three, but it is. You know what it is, it’s very surreal actually. All the people I grew up with, they all think it’s hilarious because I’ve never been like the pretty girl at any point in my life growing up, so it’s a little bit funny.
Crave Online: All the gorgeous women I interview say that.
Kerry Washington: Interesting, but really, you could ask most of my friends in elementary school and junior high school. I was the last one to have a boyfriend. I was a bit of a tomboy and collected frogs. I was not a girly girl.
