Kerry Washington

Before Scandal, she'd spent a decade doing respectable work in films like Save the Last Dance and Ray, with enough name recognition to get rooms but not enough to fill them. That changed in 2012 when Shonda Rhimes cast her as Olivia Pope, making her the first Black woman to lead a network drama in 38 years. The show ran seven seasons and sparked what NBC News called the "Kerry Washington Effect," a direct catalyst for networks casting women of color in dramatic leads. The Emmy nominations followed, along with cover stories that had nothing to do with who she was dating.

She's been quietly building a producer's career behind the actress's face. Simpson Street, her production company, has generated Little Fires Everywhere, Daughters (which won the Sundance Audience Award in 2024), and Reasonable Doubt, renewed for a fourth season. In December 2024, she got her Hollywood Walk of Fame star and starred in Netflix's The Six Triple Eight. The Knives Out sequel is still in the pipeline, and Imperfect Women is already streaming on Apple TV+. A decade ago she was the show. Now she's the network.

Her 2023 memoir revealed she'd only learned in 2018 that her father wasn't her biological father, conceived via a sperm donor. She grew up in the Bronx at the same Boys and Girls Club as Jennifer Lopez, who was actually her dance teacher there growing up. For Django Unchained, she learned German from scratch and recorded a 19th-century lullaby with Christoph Waltz tutoring her on set. She turned down Yale and Dartmouth to pursue acting, then spent years substitute teaching when the films dried up. Her Save the Last Dance students reportedly skipped class to get her to teach French.