You know our first guest from Scandal,
and her new show is so good.
It's called Little Fires Everywhere.
Please welcome Kerry Washington.
Hi.
Hello, my friend.
How are you?
How's your family?
Everybody's OK.
Thank God everybody's doing OK.
The kids are home and being home schooled.
And we're keeping distance from even my parents
who live close by.
But we're seeing them from afar.
We play six feet away from them in their front yard.
And yes, it is a really crazy time.
Now are you-- really the problem that everyone
is having is trying to help kids with their homework
because I guess everything has changed.
Like math has changed and--
I mean, I think math is the biggest problem, right?
Are you having that?
No because luckily, my kids are-- my littles are young.
They're still pretty young, so I'm
good with coming up with words that start with A. You know,
like if they were in AP trigonometry,
I would not be good.
But I'm super good at like, three plus seven is--
that I can do.
A ten.
Ten.
Yes.
Andy and I got it.
Ten.
I got it first though, Andy.
All right.
You would get a sticker in my house.
Very good.
Aw.
I'm going to get a sticker for you, Andy.
You should start giving me stickers.
I actually like that.
I should give you a sticker.
And just in case you were wondering what that mop is,
that's Mary.
She can't be here, so I have Mary's head on a mop.
And then Andy is outside.
And then I'm just all alone with Portia in here.
She's my audience.
So now, listen.
I was told that you had a pajama party at home,
but wouldn't that just be every day?
Why is that a special day?
Well, so I'm trying to do meetings on Zoom
and maintain the operations of my company
and keep everybody employed.
So I have been trying to get dressed most days
and getting my kids dressed.
But they decided, because sometimes they
have pajama day at school, that they wanted
to have pajama day at home.
And I think everybody on my team was terrified
that I had given up on life because I was just showing up
to all my Zoom meetings in my jammies and acting like normal.
But I think we need to be doing more jammy days.
Like we should decide--
like the whole country or the world should decide
Mondays are jammy days.
Yes, but I don't know what Monday is.
I have no idea what day it is.
It doesn't matter.
I don't wear a watch anymore.
I have no idea.
But we should do a pajama day maybe next week
where we both wear pajamas.
OK, Andy.
I'll get a onesie.
I would love to see you in a onesie out there.
All right.
Speaking of pajamas,
Yes.
I saw a picture of you and Mariah Carey.
This was in an airport.
And is she wearing pajamas in an airport?
Yes.
She's wearing like couture pajamas.
I want to say this was pre social distancing, just
so everyone knows.
Because we're snuggled up super close.
I assumed that.
She was wearing couture jammies at LAX.
That was at the airport.
Well, somehow it doesn't surprise me.
It's Mariah Carey.
She can do anything.
And she's always ahead of the curve.
She's always groundbreaking.
She was doing jammies before any of us were publicly.
Right.
But not social distancing.
She was right next to you.
She was.
Thank God.
So she wasn't-- yes.
She wasn't ahead of the curve there.
So I saw you at the Golden Globes.
That's the last time I saw you.
[INAUDIBLE] amazing speech, which I loved.
Thank you.
Yes, it's so weird to think back when we could all
see each other, and be in a room and next to each other
at tables.
Someone reminded me that that was the last time I saw you
and that, I guess everyone was concerned for your outfit
that you were going to--
were you concerned for your outfit?
I felt confident.
I felt like I had enough top stick to keep things in place,
to keep the girls in place.
But I kept looking down at the tape.
And I had extra tape in my purse just in case it didn't work.
Right.
I was good.
Yes, but you had extra tape in your purse,
but what if it happens when you're on camera?
You can't just go like that and then stick a piece of tape
on your girls.
No, but I mean also my husband had an eye on it.
He kept checking me out as I was doing interviews to make sure
that they were good.
I felt like I had enough tools in my arsenal.
Yes.
So I want to talk about something that you've
been doing for a long time.
We're talking about how hard this whole thing is.
New York has been hit the hardest so far.
And I know that's your hometown.
And you have been helping hospitals for ten years.
This is something that you were involved in,
and now more than ever they need help.
But tell everyone what the organization is
and what you're doing.
No, I haven't.
I haven't been doing.
It's this organization, MedShare has been.
For ten years they've been helping underserved hospitals
all over the world.
And so they've been at the front lines of COVID
from when it first started.
And I was able to identify hospitals in the Bronx
that were underserved.
My hometown where I come from.
And contribute to masks and equipment
to help keep that hospital safe.
That's fantastic.
Yes.
I think people need to really grasp
that if we don't protect all of the brave men and women who
are going into the hospitals that are--
and even all the janitors and everyone cleaning.
But if we don't take care of these people,
we don't have a hospital.
We don't have anybody to take care of us.
Right.
Next week we're going to be announcing some more
work that we're doing with hospitals
in the Bronx with Columbia Presbyterian and that
sort of family of hospitals, so I'm excited about that.
But I think that no matter who you are,
I feel like it's an important time to remember that no matter
who you are, you can be giving whatever you have to give.
Right?
If you're a kid, you can make signs for nurses and doctors
to keep morale up because keeping everybody
in a state of feeling good while they're
doing this extraordinary work is so important.
I work with a teledentistry company called [INAUDIBLE]
that they've transformed their factories
and are no longer creating aligners,
but are creating ventilator parts and masks.
Whoever you are, whether it's money,
whether it's time, whether it's resources, texting a friend,
leaving a sign for your postal worker,
leaving an extra tip at the grocery store.
Everybody who can't stay home, this
is the time for us to do our part
and stay home to slow the spread of this virus,
but to thank the people who are out there who
aren't staying home for keeping the world running.
Exactly.
We're going to find the good in this,
and the good in it is people that can help
are helping in all the ways that you said.
We're going to take a break, and we're
going to talk about Little Fires Everywhere when we come back.
Woo.
She's mean.
We're back Kerry Washington.
That's a clip from Little Fires Everywhere.
It is so good, and everyone is watching it.
It's doing very well.
Tell everybody what it is about.
Well, Reese Witherspoon is so good.
It is a series starring she and I.
It's based on a brilliant New York Times best-seller book
called Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng.
And it's really about these two women who
could not be more different.
They are different socioeconomically,
and racially, and in their beliefs that how they mother.
And they're kind of thrust into each other's lives,
and their daughters each become obsessed with the other mother.
And that transforms their families forever.
So tWitch is a huge fan of the show,
and he has a question for you. tWitch, are you there?
Yes, I'm here.
I'm here.
Hi, tWitch.
Hi.
How are you doing?
I'm excellent , all things considered
Amen.
But I just wanted to ask.
how did coming up in the 90s prepare you
to play a parent in the 90s?
It's such a good question.
So we were in a pre-production meeting, Reese Witherspoon
and I. We were talking about the costumes
with Lyn Paolo, who also did the costumes for Scandal.
She did these costumes, and we were
chatting about all the clothes that the teenagers wear.
And she was like, I had that skirt, and I had that shirt,
and I had those rollerblades.
And it hit us that like, oh, we're
actually playing our mothers in this series.
So it's been--
I don't know.
It's very meaningful for me to get to step back and try
to walk in my mother's shoes.
Love it.
Yes, it's good.
It's good.
And then I know your dad was an extra on the show.
Well, please, please Ellen, we don't
say extra, particularly not when we're talking about my dad.
He's a background actor, and he was a featured background
actor.
[INAUDIBLE] have the appropriate level
of respect for his performance.
Well, when I call him extra, I mean he's extra.
Like he's not just regular.
He's extra.
That's what I mean.
If there is anything that my dad is, it's extra.
Keep pedaling, Ellen.
That's as opposed to Andy, who is average.
[LAUGHING]
Andy's kind of like an extra, but he's average.
Yes.
Yes, I'm an average extra.
No, my dad is [INAUDIBLE] and he's brilliant.
I'm a little bit nervous that I'm
going to drive by my parents' house,
and there's going to be like a for-your-consideration sign
with my dad's face on it that he has painted himself.
So we'll see.
Oh.
I think you should take an ad out and do that.
I think that's great.
So Kerry, you're taking part in the One World
Together at Home concert this weekend, right?
Yes, I am.
I'm so excited.
It's such important work.
The concert is going to be raising money
for helping to just protect the globe from this virus
and to take care of people all over the world.
Yes, it's going to be amazing.
It's on all the networks, and it's
going to be everybody in the world on it.
And you're not asking for money because the money has already
been raised.
So it's just a wonderful concert for everybody to enjoy.
For everybody to come together and have a communal experience
and watch phenomenal performances
and be inspired together.
I can't wait.
I'm going to watch in my pajamas.
Yay!
All right, Kerry.
It's great seeing you.
It is called Little Fires Everywhere.
It's available on Hulu.
We'll be right back.
I can't wait to hug you guys again in person.
I can't wait to hug you too.
Thanks, Kerry.
That was awesome, Kerry.
Portia says bye.
Bye.
Bye, Porsh.
[MUSIC PLAYING]