As disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein most probably shuffles off to prison, found guilty in New York of two felony sex crimes and now preparing for a new trial in Los Angeles, Kerry Washington is in high gear. There’s a bit of poetic justice in this moment in time.

Returning to the March 2, 2020 issue of Porter Edit, Washington is styled by Natasha Royt in sleek key essentials in neutral colors from Bite Studios, Bottega Veneta, Commission, Ellery Helmut Lang, The Line by K and more. Photographer Liz Collins is in the studio, and Lynette Nyland drops by the star’s Simpson Street production company (named after the street in the Bronx where her mother grew up).

Washington quickly bottom-lines the convo, when asked by Nyland why with all her success, she has now launched a production company.

“I always have, even as a child, been really opinionated. I’ve always wanted an environment where I can feel seen and heard,” she says. “I don’t even know that I saw myself as a leader, just as a person with a lot to say. I think the more I started to work in this industry, I started to understand that there weren’t a lot of people who understood my perspective as a woman or as a woman of color in power – and I had to create that opportunity.”

“I remember UNDERSTANDING that there was ‘another world’ and feeling OVERWHELMED, angry, inspired, delighted and BETRAYED at the same time. Thinking, ‘Why does nobody I know LIVE like this?’”

Washington is reflecting on her experiences and feelings attending Manhattan’s Upper East Side Spence School,” also the alma mater of Gwyneth Paltrow and Jade Jagger.“

Washington’s mandate at Simpson Street is centering otherness and “really reminding ourselves, and each other, that protagonists look like all of us – that anyone can be the hero of their own story and their own life.”

Washington’s latest release, Little Fires Everywhere, puts motherhood at the crux of the plot. A television adaptation of Celeste Ng’s novel of the same name, the eight-part series on Hulu follows worlds colliding between Elena Richardson (played by Reese Witherspoon) – picture-perfect matriarch of a well-to-do Ohio family – and the mysterious Mia Warren (played by Washington), who moves into town with her daughter, craving a break from their traveling lifestyle. Secrets, lies and loss loom over the two families.