50 Interesting Facts About Kerry Washington, A 'Super Soul Sunday', 'Game of Thrones' Fan

Kerry Washington has appeared in such films as Ray, She Hate Me, The Last King of Scotland and Django Unchained (2013). She also stars on the TV series Scandal.

1. Kerry Marisa Washington was born January 31, 1977.

2. Her mother was a professor and father was a real estate agent.

3. She was born and raised in New York City.

4. She was on the swim team in high school.

5. She is named after Ireland's country Kerry.

6. Growing up, her favorite movie was "Splash."

7. She attended the Bronx Boys & Girls Club as Jennifer Lopez.

8. While attending the Spence School in Manhattan, a prestigious private school, Kerry was in a nine-girl a cappella singing group called Triple Trio.

9. She took ballet classes a young girl.

10. The first musical that she fell in love with was Into the Woods.

11. Her grandparents' names are on the memorial wall at Ellis Island.

12. Kerry is cousins with former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

13. At age 13, studied acting at the Education Theater Company in New York.

14. She attended George Washington University and graduated with a BFA in Theater in 1998.

15. She was accepted to Yale University and Dartmouth College.

16. Some of her first acting work included appearing in sex-education skits.

17. After graduating from college, she travelled in India and studied yoga and a rigorous form of traditional Indian theater. "I never even got onstage," she told the New York Post. "You're not allowed to until you've studied for years."

18. Her favorite fruit is pineapple.

19. She only got her drivers when she was in her mid-twenties.

20. Kerry made her feature-film debut in Our Song (2000), a movie about teen pregnancy.

21. Her breakout role was in 2001's "Save the Last Dance" in which she played a teen mom.

22. In order to play a lesbian longing for a child in Spike Lee's 2004 film She Hate Me, Kerry Washington was sent to "lesbian boot camp" by the director. "I always approach a role like an anthropologist, so I like to lose myself in a culture and an identity," she told The Advocate. "It was amazing to spend time in that world."

23. Washington's career really took flight in 2004; she took on several major movie roles that year, including Della Rae Robinson, the wife of blind singer and musician Ray Charles, in the biopic Ray.

24. She won an Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture in 2005 for her role as Ray Charles' wife Della in the film "Ray."

25. Washington was engaged to actor David Moscow from October 2004 to March 2007.

26. In 2006, kerry showed off her skills as a dramatic actress in The Last King of Scotland. She won raves for her nuanced turn as the wife of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin-played by Forrest Whitaker-in the film.

27. In 2006, she signed on to be a spokeswoman for beauty brand L'Oreal Paris, "a company that has historically represented so many different kinds of women with different kinds of skin color," she says.

28. If she wasn't an actress today, she said she would love to be a clinical psychologist. "I imagined I'd be a clinical psychologist, with a focus on how performance shapes identity," she told Elle. "I'd figure out ways to use role-playing in the healing of people."

29. She made her Broadway debut in 2009 in David Mamet's Race.

30. If the president on her hit TV show was African-American, she would not have done the show because of her good relationship with President Barack Obama. "I thought, 'If the president on the show is black, I will not do the show,'" she told Ebony. "I didn't want to do anything that compromised my relationship with the [president]."

31. Every year on her birthday, she gives her parents a gift. Talk about being the perfect daughter!

32. She loves going to Disney Theme parks.

33. Her favorite part of flying is take off.

34. She is a huge fan of Oprah Winfrey and says she watched every single episode of Super Soul Sunday on OWN.

35. The first car she ever leased was a Prius and she has had one ever since.

36. Kerry is an adviser for V-Day, an organization dedicated to ending violence against women and girls.

37. She almost did not get to give a speech at The Democratic National Convention in 2012. "I was asked to speak at the convention and I wasn't sure that we were going to be able to make it happen actually because we're shooting the show right now, but somehow with red eye flights and not enough sleep, we made it happen, so I'm really grateful because it was a true honor to be there," she said.

38. She does not drink coffee.

39. In 2012, Washington landed the role of a lifetime as Olivia Pope, the head of a Washington, D.C., crisis management firm that specializes in cleaning up political messes, on the ABC drama Scandal. The role makes her the first African-American female lead in a network drama in almost 40 years.

40. In June 2013, Washington married pro football player Nnamdi Asomugha. The couple had been dating for about a year before tying the knot.

41. She started a Scandal tradition. "Before shooting a new show we scream the episode number, applaud, and bang on furniture," she said.

42. Just like her character Olivia Pope, she loves to eat popcorn.

43. Kerry said she does an amazing Tina Turner impression.

44. She is a fan of "Game of Thrones."

45. She co-directed the music video for rapper Common's song "I Want You".

46. During her November 2013 appearance on Saturday Night Live, she impersonated Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and Beyonce in a cold opening sketch that mentioned and satirized SNL not having a black female cast member since 2007. Since then, SNL has hired an African-American actress.

47. In October 2013, Kerry announced that her and husband Nnamdi are expecting their first child.

48. Vanity Fair to named her character Olivia Pope as one of The Top Ten Best-Dressed TV Characters in 2013.

49. That same year, she was announced as the new face of Neutrogena skin care.

50. Kerry admits that she was initially hesitant to join Twitter, but she is now an active user of the social network.