Kerry Washington’s Scandal-Free Life Includes Pilates Classes
Unlike her character, Oliva Pope, Kerry Washington likes to live a “Scandal”-free life outside of the hit ABC series. The actress, who gave birth in October, has trained with Pilates teacher Julie Tuner for years. In a new interview, Julie explains how she worked with Kerry and several other celebrities to give them the results they seek.
The Los Angeles-based Julie Turner is skilled in ballet, dance, Pilates, and yoga, reports the Daily Mail. Her classes combine physical health with emotional wellbeing, to help improve one’s quality of life. Kerry Washington and her Scandal co-star, Bellamy Young, often work with Turner on the sets of TV shows and films.
“Depending on what other fitness activities my clients are engaged in, I work with them 1-3 times per week, for 60-90 minutes,” the personal trainer told the outlet.
Kerry, who gave birth to her second child in October, has trained with Julie for several years, even while filming Scandal in 2012. She has said that Pilates is her favorite workout. She has practiced two to six lessons per week for the past five years. In an interview with Self, Kerry explained how Pilates has brought her out of her comfort zone while focusing on her self-care.
“There are a lot of forms of exercise where you have to leave yourself out of the room while you force yourself to do this thing,” Washington explained. “With Pilates, I get to bring my true self. I cry, I laugh. I get to go: ‘Where is my body today? What do I need today?'”
The 40-year-old makes an effort to wake up at the crack of dawn so that she can squeeze in a workout at 6:30 a.m. so she can come back home to her children and husband, NFL star Nnamdi Asomugha. She has hardly missed a workout with her trainer because it makes her feel good – inside and out.
“It’s important to have rest days. But in the long run, if I don’t work out for, like, three days, I feel worse, not better.”
Pilates has also helped Washington keep her cool outside of Scandal. She doesn’t lead the dramatic life that she does on television. She told Yahoo! Style how she has lived a drama-free life of the show while living in Hollywood and being under the microscope. Washington admits that she enjoys being a housewife and making banana bread.
“Having friends and family that don’t love you because you’re on a TV show is important. I don’t have to be Kerry Washington when I’m at home. I’m a mom and a wife. I like to make banana bread. What else do you do with the bananas that wind up spoiling?”
She has also remained politically active on social media and outside of work. She has been working with former president Barack Obama’s administration as part of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. She also campaigned on his behalf and attended the Women’s March in Los Angeles on Saturday. When it comes to the parallels between Kerry’s shows and what’s currently happening in Washington, D.C., she hints that it somewhat mirrors what’s been going on in the past election.
“We open on election night,” she says of the new season. “You find out very quickly who won and who lost. It seems like much of the season is filling in the time when we left at the convention and when we come back on election night.”
Washington appeared on a segment on Good Morning America on Wednesday, Jan. 25, where she joked about how she hid her baby bump on the show, reports Us Weekly.
“You could play a really fun game for the first five episodes of the bump,” she told host Michael Strahan. “We shot five episodes before I gave birth.”
Kerry said that the show’s writers and producers would make sure to hide her character behind random objects and props such as “flowers, behind Prada purses. Behind big coats and capes.”
Watch Kerry Washington in the Season 6 premiere of Scandal tonight on Thursday, Jan. 26 at 9 p.m. ET.
[Featured Image by Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for The Weinstein Company]
