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I've been following the actor Carrie Washington's ethos and evolution for a while now,

and when I heard that she was publishing a memoir, I was happy for the chance to draw her out on

being style. She played the uber glamorous, toughest nails, Olivia Pope, on the Peabody award-winning

TV series Scandal. That was a quintessentially American character, even as it pushed at some

cultural norms. But Carrie has also brought moral rigor to very different kinds of roles,

including in little fires everywhere, Django Unchained and American Sun. I was in the audience for

that show on Broadway, and I was aware of the care and intention Carrie personally put

into bringing a racially mixed audience not just into attending, but into participating and

reflecting together. She says to me in this conversation that she approaches acting as a devotional

practice, and that is such an interesting way into the high drama that is the human condition.

I'm Christa Tippett, and this is on being.

Carrie Washington's many other film and TV credits include Save the Last Dance, Ray, and the

Last King of Scotland. Her new memoir, her first book, is Thicker than Water. In it, she explores

many things about which she's not spoken publicly before. She grew up in the Bronx with two

loving parents, and yet in a home harboring a great deal of tension and an important secret.

I would like to just note here as we begin a detail that feels important that you were born

in the middle of the night, on which the final episode of Ruth's aired.

...