The Emmy-winning actress opens up to ESSENCE about the new film, bonding with her co-stars, and how the role challenged her in unexpected ways.
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00:00Cold shot, show me what you got.
00:06I mean, that was amazing.
00:10Don't be mad, I was always a better shot.
00:12No.
00:13Yes.
00:13Never.
00:14What?
00:20My name is Oakley John with Essendon Magazine.
00:22I'm speaking to the amazing Kerry Washington about Shadow Horse.
00:25Thank you so much.
00:26How you doing today?
00:27I'm really good.
00:28So what I thought was particularly special about this film is it drops on Mother's Day weekend.
00:33Yes.
00:33Does that make this project more personal for you, especially with you being a mom?
00:38Well, I love that it drops Mother's Day weekend because to me, the film really is like an homage to badass parents.
00:43I mean, you have this mom who's so fierce, who has made the difficult decision of stepping away from her family to protect them in the shadows.
00:52And then this dad, this beautiful black dad with his son who's doing really the heavy lifting of day-to-day parenting, who's also equally badass and fierce and fearless, but also sensitive and warm and caring.
01:05And I just think these two images of parenting are so powerful in the world we live in today.
01:10And yes, the film is like a big, bold, splashy action adventure, but at its heart, it's about family.
01:16And it's about like the lengths that we go to protect the people that matter most to us.
01:21So to me, that's a perfect Mother's Day weekend film.
01:23And I can't lie, I was upset with you in the film.
01:27Tell me.
01:28So I know it's part of the, you know, you're trying to protect your family and your son, but I was like, how could she leave that cute kid?
01:34I know.
01:35So that's what's so great because Jaleel is so cute.
01:38Adorable.
01:38So adorable.
01:39He plays Kai, our son.
01:41And we were so grateful when we found him.
01:43Omar and I were like, he's the one because you have to love this kid because the whole movie is about protecting and saving this kid.
01:51So if you don't love the kid, the movie doesn't work.
01:53But halfway through filming, we were like, is he stealing this movie from us?
01:58Like, I think he's stealing this movie and that's okay.
02:02So in doing research for this conversation, I went on your Instagram and I saw you training for Shadow Force.
02:09And the caption, you said that this role stretched you in ways that you never imagined.
02:14Can you talk to me about what was your preparation process for this particular character?
02:17Yeah.
02:18When I said that, I meant both physically and emotionally, right?
02:22Because to put myself in the shoes of a mom who loves her family so much that she is willing to back away because she wants to protect them was so intense.
02:30I mean, I'm a wreck because I'm going to be away from my kids for like a week doing press for this film.
02:34To step away in the way that she did, I think, is so courageous and such an act of sacrifice.
02:40But also the physical training is unlike anything I've ever done before.
02:44The weight training, the Pilates, just to be able to even learn the fight training.
02:49And then hours of fight training, fight choreography, hours of weapons training, working with the stunt coordinators to learn all the stunts, learning how to drive a boat, the car chase scenes.
02:58I mean, it was just insane.
02:59It was really, really exciting and fun.
03:02And I learned a lot.
03:05So I thought it was really cool seeing a predominantly black cast or a black main cast.
03:10Yeah.
03:11And, you know, no disrespect to any other films, too, but sometimes I get frustrated when I see, you know, films about slavery or, you know, films about a day and a life in the hood and everything.
03:21So I really appreciated this film for telling this story.
03:24How do you feel being a part of a film that tells a story like this and shows that our narratives can be different as well, too?
03:31Yeah.
03:31You know, one of the reasons I was so excited that Omar C. came on board, a lot of people love him from Lupin.
03:36He is an international superstar.
03:38And when he came on board, it just leveled up the film because suddenly we were reminded that black people exist all over the world, that we speak multiple languages and that they have this love that crosses territories and crosses languages and culture.
03:50There is so exciting to me.
03:52We don't get to see that often and centering this black family in this black marriage, fighting against these systems that don't want them to have their freedom and their liberty to love each other.
04:02It's funny.
04:03I was talking to another journalist how, like, it's not entirely different from the themes of Django, right?
04:08Like you had this man and woman who wanted to be together in a time when they legally weren't allowed to be together.
04:13And he, like, chases all across the United States looking for her.
04:18This film is similar in that it's like a black couple who love each other and these systems of power don't want them to be together and they're willing to do whatever it takes to be together.
04:27It's a different kind of burning the house down, but they're still burning the house down.
04:32So you spoke about your training and everything.
04:35And, you know, there were car scenes and shootouts and everything.
04:37Was there any scene in this film particularly where you were like, oh, my God, this is next level.
04:42This is crazy.
04:42So the fight scenes that I have with Omar were pretty intense because he's huge.
04:48He's so much taller than me and broad shoulder.
04:51And he's a really big guy.
04:52So it was fun to think about, like, what would I do?
04:55She doesn't always play fair.
04:56Like, what would I do to be able to take him down?
04:59And I would know his weak spots and developing that fight style together with each other was really fun.
05:04It was how he and I kind of developed the chemistry that you see in the film was through our fight training and a little bit of the competitive nature between us two.
05:11That was in our weapons training.
05:13But I would say the other thing that was really hard that I didn't even think about when I was first reading the script was parking a boat is really hard.
05:22I mean, I really had to learn how to drive the boat.
05:25But driving the boat is less difficult than parking a boat is insanely difficult.
05:29So when I watched that part of the scene, which nobody else is thinking about, I just parked the boat and hop off of it.
05:34But I'm like, get it, Carrie, because that was not easy.
05:38What was it like working with Divine and Method, man?
05:40They were really funny in the film.
05:42I feel like Divine and Method, Cliff, they're so fantastic in the film because they provide, like, the joy and levity that allows you to push through the intensity of the drama.
05:52Their chemistry together is bananas.
05:54So good.
05:55They're both so talented.
05:56I mean, we obviously had the lucky chance of working with Divine before her fancy Oscar, which is amazing.
06:03And Method, man, I just think he's doing such incredible work.
06:08So to have them together was really, really fun and exciting.
06:11I hope I can work with them both again.
06:13They're so great.
06:13And what I really appreciate about you and your career is the versatility of the roles that you choose.
06:19Oh, thank you.
06:19I wanted to ask you with this particular one.
06:21What was it about this role that made you say yes when you read the script?
06:24I was wanting to do action again.
06:28I did action, like, 20 years ago in Mr. and Mrs. Smith and climbing up that mountain with Angelina Jolie and shooting the little bit of guns.
06:35I was like, I want to be able to do this again one day.
06:37And my career has just kind of taken a different path.
06:40So as a producer, when Scandal ended, one of the things I had on my list of, like, things I want to do next was to find a great action film that was rooted in heart.
06:48Because I always feel like the best action movies are the ones where you understand why the explosions are happening, where you care about the people and what's happening in their lives.
06:57So this script was a no-brainer for me.
07:00But thank you so much.
07:01That's all I have for you.
07:02I appreciate the conversation.
07:03Happy early Mother's Day.
07:04Thank you so much.
07:06Make sure you grab all your, you know, fantastic, fierce moms and amazing dads and enjoy the film.
07:12Absolutely.
07:12Thank you so much.