Washington, who honored as one of 'Time's Women of the Year, spoke to ET about her motivation to enact positive change in the world.
Kerry Washington is working towards making the world a better place.
Washington, who was honored at TIME Women of the Year gala the event held on International Women's Day Tuesday, spoke to ET's Nischelle Turner about the honor and what it means for her as a mother, specifically a "girl mom."
"It's very surreal," Washington said of receiving the honor. "I'm thrilled to be able to be here, being honored with women who are heroes of mine, and who are doing extraordinary work, and to amplify their work and just sort of cheer each other on. There's so much work to do to make this world a better place, so it's really thrilling to be able to celebrate some women who are working towards that."
As a "girl mom," it's something Washington looks at in a different way, with the Scandal alum telling ET, it makes her want to "do better" for her kids.
"I do think being a 'girl mom,' makes you think about these issues in a different way," Washington said. "They just make me want to do more and better and be there for them."
During the month of February, the Little Fires Everywhere actress posted a series of photos to Instagram celebrating Black history and Black women. Washington explained her motivation behind the moving photo tributes and her plan to share more in honor of Women's History Month, which kicked off at the start of March.
"I think we have one more in the series," she teased. "We just wanted to find a really fun way to celebrate important women in history. Black History Month is such an important time of year, but we wanted to put the focus on Black women by making it 'herstory,' but also, we continued in March 'cause it's still Women's History Month and also, Black history for me, is 365 days a year."
"There's never a day that Black history doesn't matter," she continued. "So, we just wanted to make it an ongoing series in celebration of important Black women who have really transformed the history of this country and the world."
As far was what Washington's working on next, the 45-year-old actress did spill on her upcoming film, The School for Good and Evil, based on the fantasy fairytale books by Soman Chainani.
"It's a really exciting film on Netflix. I get to play Dovey, the dean of the school for good, and Charlize [Theron] is the dean of the school for bad. So, we're pretty typecast," Washington said of her and Theron's roles in the film. "We had a lot of fun. We had a really good time working off of each other and playing together, and really just spending time."
See more on Washington and her activism and acting roles, in the video below.
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