-Kerry Washington!
It's so great to see your face.
I miss you, pal. -So good to see you.
Look what I wore for you.
-[ Clapping ] Ohhh! The best!
You are the coolest! -Because you,
you give us these shirts every time we come on the show
and I don't think, in the years that I've been coming,
I've actually said, "Jimmy, thank you
for these super cool shirts that you give us."
And I was like, "Today I can thank him!
'Cause I have to do laundry
and it's actually the only thing I have."
[ Laughter ]
-Oh, I'm so happy you're wearing it.
It means a lot to me.
Every time I see -- Oh, I love it so much.
Where are you in quarantine
and who are you quarantined with?
-I am in my home.
I'm actually hiding in my bedroom.
-[ Laughs ] -And I have a little,
tiny corner of my bedroom that's like an office.
Not a real office. But --
And I'm with my husband and my kids and, yeah, yeah.
-Yeah. And everything in your house is good?
You're all set up? Do you have all your supplies
and your things? -Yeah, and we're just
discovering. Like I --
Like you know when you get down
to the very end of your breakfast cereal?
I'm like, "Let's make trail mix!"
We're just gonna like throw in
random other stuff we have in the cabinet.
It's actually -- We were doing like morning storytime
with some other friends of ours,
where I was reading stories to our kids and their kids,
and they were eating trail mix.
And I was like, "Ah! That's what we do
with the box of cereal that has too little for anybody to eat."
-That's a great idea. That's a life hack!
-Yeah. -That's a life hack right there.
I love it. -[ Laughs ]
-Do you have your gloves and your mask and everything?
-I do. I have this super cute mask because my friend Marika,
who is -- My friend Scott Foley is very lucky
to be married to my amazing friend Marika.
-Okay. -And she is phenomenal
with a sewing machine and so she made matching masks
for all the girls in my family, and all the boys.
The boys have Superman masks.
And the girls, we all have these really cute...
-Oh, let me see that.
Oh, my gosh!
-Isn't that so cute? -That's a friend, right there.
-Yeah. -That's talent, right there.
-Fashion, you know?
-Yeah, why not?
Are the kids interrupting you during meetings?
-So I have -- Yes.
I found that, recently, I gave them the homework assignment
of creating signs that say "Do Not Enter,"
that Mommy can hang on her [ Laughing ] bedroom door.
-Do they read them at all?
-Not really. But it was good.
It gave them an activity.
-Yeah, they don't really care, right? Yeah.
When did you start quarantining?
Were you working on something?
I know you're always busy. -I was.
We were like three days away from being done with "The Prom,"
which is a film I was doing with Ryan Murphy
and Nicole Kidman
and Meryl Streep and James Corden.
-Oh, yeah!
That's the Tony-nominated play.
-Yes. It's an amazing musical
and I hope we get to finish it.
I'm sure he's maybe editing from afar now,
but we have three more days of filming.
-Wait, do you sing in this?
-I do, a little bit.
-[ Claps ] Wow, Kerry!
-[ Laughing ] -This is exciting.
I wanna hear you sing. That's great!
-It's so exciting.
I sang a lot in high school and college,
but I just haven't really done it in my professional life.
-Oh, my gosh! -Yeah.
How much do you miss having an audience?
Do you miss it so much?
-Yeah, it's -- I'm getting --
Weirdly, I'm kinda getting used to this.
I feel like the interviews are kind of a bit more intimate.
-Yeah. -And, right now I think
everyone just wants to hear anyone talking
and just some type of company
that's different than who they're at home with.
And some people are home alone, you know?
-Yeah. -So this means a lot to me,
that you're doing this.
-Oh, me too. Thank you.
Do you call up the guys from The Roots
and have them just like play over the phone for you?
-Yeah. We did.
I FaceTimed Questlove yesterday
'cause I was interviewing the Beastie Boys.
I'm like, "Quest, do you wanna do this with me?
'Cause I know you love the Beasties,"
so he's like -- -Oh, I love that.
-So we did it together and like it was great.
And he's so nerdy, when it comes to music.
It's really -- It's kind of awesome to watch.
I love watching anyone
at their thing, being nerdiest at their thing.
A wine expert being all nerdy about wine.
I love that stuff. -Yeah, that passion.
You just feel the passion. -Yes!
You feel -- It's just -- it's in there, you know?
When, yeah, when you talk to a chef about how they make --
boil water. They say it so passionately.
It like, "Wow!" -[ Laughing ]
-It sounds so boring, but he was great.
So I just -- Everyone's getting creative
and finding new ways to do stuff.
It's kind of -- In some ways, it's amazing to see.
I saw that you were on Instagram.
You reunited with your "Scandal" cast.
-Yes! I did.
I went -- Tony and I did an Instagram Live.
I was really excited about --
He had done a really cool post about the census
and so we actually were going on live
to just celebrate our anniversary
'cause we're super corny and we have
a pretend anniversary, so we celebrate it.
-[ Laughing ] -But then, I like --
I had been inspired to do my census immediately.
I was gonna do it, anyway, but I was like,
"I don't wanna show up for Instagram Live with Tony
and not have done my census,"
so, then, we kind of like talked census.
Which was great, 'cause I had all these people say like,
"I finally did my census
'cause I saw you and Tony talking about it."
And it's so important for people to do.
And there's literally no excuse, right?
Like we're all -- Not all, but many of us
are lucky enough to be able to be home right now,
so, go do it. -What is the big point
of doing the census? Just so everyone --
-Funny you should ask, Jimmy.
[ Laughs ] -Yeah. I'm good like that.
-It's good.
It's how we get counted, you know?
Like every ten years, our government counts
how many people there are in government,
in order to be able to fund schools and fund hospitals.
So, even in the recovery from COVID-19,
as we're all trying to get,
I wouldn't say back to things, how they were,
but to create a new normal, where we're able
to take care of each other and ourselves even better,
if we don't get counted, we're not gonna have
the representatives we need,
the number of classrooms and teachers we need,
the hospital beds we need.
We have to show up and be counted
so that we matter in the face of government.
-[ Clap ] Everybody, do your census.
Fill it out now. Do it this weekend.
Why not? Get it over with.