Kerry Washington Talks About Her Career and Keeping Her Relationships Private

Kerry Washington is still on the up and up. Ahead of the season 3 premiere of her show, Scandal, she is on the cover of Glamour magazine. In addition to a photoshoot, she also has a coverstory and interview with Cindi Leive. Below are excerpts from her interview and images from the photoshoot, read the complete coverage in Glamour;

Cindi Leive: You’re so close to your parents. Were they OK with your career choice?
Kerry Washington: When I said that this is what I wanted to do, my mother literally cried. She didn’t want me to experience all that rejection. They both would have preferred me to have been a lawyer.… [After college] I gave myself a year to make it in acting and was living in my parents’ house teaching beginner’s yoga when I got my first part, in Our Song. Then I got Save the Last Dance.… Now they’re really behind me. And I’m always working. My cousins call me the longshoreman of actors.

CL: OK, so relationships. In interview after interview, you always use the same phrase: “I don’t talk about my personal life.” I’m curious about the discipline that it requires to be so tight-lipped.
KW: I learned through experience that it doesn’t work for me to talk about my personal life. I’ve had earlier times in my career when I did talk about it. I was on the cover of a bridal magazine [InStyle Weddings, in 2005, when Washington was engaged to actor David Moscow]. But I couldn’t just turn around and say, “I only want to talk about the good stuff, but not the bad stuff.” So I just thought, “OK, no more.”

CL: You even managed to get married in June without anyone knowing.
KW: Absolutely! I’m walking around in the world with my ring. And when people say congratulations, I say thank you. But I’m going to continue to not talk about it and just let it unfold.

CL: It must have been satisfying to pull off a wedding with no press around.
KW: [Laughs.] I don’t want to sound smug about it…but the point is to do what’s best for me. I have girlfriends in this business who talk about their personal lives, and it works for them, and I love it. But not for me.