Thicker than Water: A Memoir

by Kerry Washington

In scene study class we studied our characters’ objectives, obstacles, and given circumstances. In movement class, we learned about our centers of gravity, unconscious movement patterns, and breath work. But in “Acting as a Business,” we learned to view ourselves as active participants in the goals we wanted to achieve. The class was taught by veteran actor Caryn West and was meant to offer each of us a straight-talk approach to thinking about ourselves not just as artists, but as the entrepreneurs, salespeople, and marketing executives—basically, the CEOs—of our own creative lives. We learned that too often actors are taught to focus on the art of their performance without being taught how to think proactively and strategically as professionals in the workplace. We talked about how to pursue work, how to obtain representation, the best ways to supplement our income on the way to our dreams, and the day-to-day resources available to us as we worked to craft a life in the arts. It was in that class that I first began to understand that as an actor you are both the producer and the product, the marketer and marketed, the driver of innovation and the passenger on the unpredictable ride that is show business. And it was also in that class that I first became aware of actors’ unions. I had joined the Screen Actors Guild years before as a result of getting a speaking role in an ABC after-school special entitled My Special Angel (in which I played an unnamed high school cheerlead...