They may not be reuniting on the dance floor, butSave the Last Dancestars Sean Patrick Thomas and Kerry Washington are working together again!
“What attracted me to the role, obviously right off the bat, was the chance to work with Kerry again,” Thomas revealed in the latest episode of thePEOPLE Every Daypodcast. “That’s always been something that I was looking forward to all those years afterSave The Last Dance, so to get a chance to do that again was just fabulous.”
Kerry Washington Instagram
Washington also directed the pilot of the drama series, which follows a corporate defense lawyer who is navigating a series of challenging high-profile cases.
“Kerry just, she 100% knows what she’s doing, so she’s hands-on with everything,” Thomas said about his friend. “She’s hands on with telling the camera people what she wants, and in terms of the actors, she was very, very detailed and specific about what she wanted from me and from this character.”
Thomas plays one of the lead character’s billionaire clients and calls Washington “invaluable” in helping him figure out who the character is. “Things we worked on shooting the pilot would really kind of set the stage for what we did for the rest of the series, so I’m very grateful to her,” he added.
The duo first appeared together in the 2001 dance film which saw Thomas as Derek and Washington as Chenille, siblings who befriend Julia Stiles' lead character. Though they’ve remained friendly over the years,Reasonable Doubtmarks their first time working together again.
Save the Last Dance cast.Paramount Pictures/courtesy: Everett Collection
“It was a great opportunity for me to get to do something that I’ve never really got a chance to do before,” he explained about the meaty role. “He’s got all kinds of things going on and all kinds of levels and motivations and energies that he brings to the table that require everything that I have to give as an actor.”
The actor, who picks projects that will “expand the whole world’s vision of what a Black man is and who a Black man is and what a Black man can be,” has a very busy autumn witha role in the biopicTill. The drama documents the activism of Mamie Till, whopursued justice after the lynching of her 14-year-old son, Emmett,in 1955.
Thomas plays civil rights activist Gene Mobley, who was married to Mamie and served as a father figure to Emmett before his death, and was “glad to be able to illuminate” Mobley’s role in this important piece of U.S. history.
“What happened to Emmett Till is still happening now,” he said about the timely film. “When you look at what happened to Trayvon Martin, when you look at what happened to Ahmaud Arbery, race-based violence against Black men and women is still alive and well right now in 2022, and so I felt personal investment in being a part of a story where we see that what happened when Black people first came to these shores.”
He added that he felt “a great personal amount of fulfillment in being a part of putting that story out there again for modern audiences to see, so that we can learn about the past and do better now.”
New episodes ofReasonable Doubtare available to stream on Hulu on Tuesdays andTillis now in theaters.
Topher Gauk-Roger
source: people.com
