American actress, director and producer, Kerry Washington, has shared her experience tracking gorillas in Uganda’s pristine Mgahinga national park back in 2005 describing it as “one of the most intense spiritual experiences” she has ever had.
Washington, popular for her role as Olivia Pope (a crisis management expert) in ABC’s hit drama series Scandal, made the revelation while on her ongoing media tour to promote her new book Thicker than Water.
In the memoir, the actress gives readers an intimate view into both her public and private worlds—as a mother, daughter, wife, artist, advocate, and trailblazer.
Chronicling her upbringing and life’s journey thus far, she reveals how she faced a series of challenges and setbacks, effectively hid childhood traumas, met extraordinary mentors, managed to grow her career, and crossed the threshold into stardom and political advocacy, ultimately discovering her truest self and, with it, a deeper sense of belonging.
She was asked to share about her trip to Africa and how it changed her, details of which are included in the book.
“I was filming The Last King of Scotland and it was my first time on the continent and it was great,” the Primetime Emmy Award winner said while appearing on BET’s The Breakfast Club show.
“Because I do feel like as black people in America, sometimes we go to Africa with all these like ‘Do I belong here? Do I feel at home? What is my relationship here?’ And I just had to put all that on the side coz my focus was on just kind of dropping in and becoming a Ugandan woman,” the actress added.
Washington visited Uganda 18 years ago during the filming of the 2006 film The Last King of Scotland which depicts the dictatorship of former Ugandan President, Idi Amin through the perspective of Nicholas Garrigan, a fictional Scottish doctor. In the film, she played Kay Amin, the youngest of the many wives of Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin.
Though the film’s main themes revolve around politics, repression, murder and xenophobia, through the character (Kay), the creators are able to portray love and romance.
Nicholas Garrigan (portrayed by James McAvoy) heads off from Scotland to work in Uganda, a country he has never heard of. While working for Amin, Garrigan quickly becomes a trusted confidant and is gradually entrusted with a wider range of duties, including treating Amin.
Soon, he develops a romantic relationship with Kay who has been rejected by Amin simply because she gave birth to an epileptic child. The two later have sex which results in a pregnancy. When Amin’s soldiers find Kay in a village clinic where she had fled to abort Garrigan’s pregnancy, they kill her and dismember her body.
During the production, Washington (28 then) and the rest of the cast took time off to explore one of Uganda’s best-kept secrets – tracking gorillas southwest of the country.
“I really did feel at home there (in Uganda). I did. I felt so lucky to be able to be immersed in the culture. That I wasn’t there as a tourist,” said Washington, also known for films like Fantastic Four and Django Unchained.
“When I was there, we were hiking in the Rwenzori [sic] mountains which border Uganda and Rwanda [sic]. And it’s where the only wild gorillas are found. And you can go out with a gorilla tracker and find the gorillas in the jungle and spend time with them”
It is likely the actress erroneously mixed up Rwenzori (which borders with DRC and isn’t inhabited by gorillas) with Mgahinga national park which is part of the Virunga massif, a chain of volcanoes where Rwanda, DRC and Uganda meet. This area is inhabited by over 600 mountain gorillas.
Mgahinga and Bwindi (whose gorilla population is over 500) together make Uganda home to over half the world total mountain gorilla population.
“You go with a tour guide and these guys with AK-47s just in case. People travel from all over the world to have this experience because it is one of the most intense spiritual experiences I’ve ever had”.
Washington, 46, recounts how the experience made her realize how much, in terms of behavior, humans share with gorillas.
“You start to think like… ‘Oh! They are so human’. But no. We are so gorilla. And the crazy thing is in the morning when they give you this orientation, they tell you ‘When the gorilla gets close to you and is looking at you, the most important thing to do is not run. To feel safe, you have to act like a gorilla”
Back in film school, she had studied animal exercises. She says for her, that very moment in Mgahinga when a gorilla descended a tree and moved towards her, was her “Meryl Streep moment” [Streep is often regarded as the best actress of her generation].
“When the gorilla came down from the tree, I squatted down. And everybody in my group was like ‘What is she doing?’ When I tell you that is the best performance of my life, I was the gorilla, the gorilla was me. I stood and picked up a leaf, started chewing up on it. And the gorilla kept getting closer and closer to us. And this little baby gorilla was so curious. She was like… What? We have never seen a human do this,” she recounts.
By her account, the tour guide said a gorilla had never been in such close proximity to a human before.
