When Kerry Washington was 17, she was not playing around when it came to sex. The budding starlet was hard at work on her craft as a teenager with an acting gig that educated as well as entertained audiences.

“I had this great job with a theater company called Star Theater,” Washington recalls on the latest episode of “When I Was 17,” premiering Saturday at 11 a.m. “We would go into schools and community centers, and we’d do this show about issues like sex and drugs.”

The job required Washington to instruct others on a very important skill — although it may have been an unorthodox extracurricular activity for a teen girl.

“So when I was 17, I was teaching other people how to put condoms on … bananas,” Washington remembers. The budding actress picked up a reputation as a teacher always armed for a lesson.

“Anytime anyone needed to know how to put a condom on, she would just pull out a banana and a condom and do a demonstration for us,” Washington’s pal Allison adds. “She was a sex-pert.”

The “For Colored Girls” star doesn’t deny her status as the go-to gal for learning how to get it on safely.

“I was kind of known, amongst my friends, as ‘the condom lady,’ ” Washington says in the episode, which also features Akon and Donald Glover. “Because of my job, I always had condoms and dental dams and pamphlets.”

Washington remains proud of the role she played both in and out of the theater company as a sex-ed resource.

“I did my job saving lives when I was 17,” she says.

Kerry Washington came through to chop it up in the studio. She was fantabulously gorgeous and slim. We discussed all sorts of stuff like the history of the movie, what it was like working with such an all -star cast, plus the importance of voting!!! It is voting day! Get out and vote! VOTE OR DIE! It’s that serious!!!

Kerry Washington is feeding the animals. The Bronx-born uptown girl is at her borough’s famous zoo standing on a high platform, clutching a leafy branch that she uses to feed Abigail, a two-year-old giraffe. While the animal carefully wraps her long, rough tongue around the leaves, Kerry asks the tour guide, “Um, can we talk about Abby’s eyelashes?”

Kerry is serious. “Why are they so long?” she asks. “To protect their eyes from…?” “Branches,” the guide says, explaining that giraffes feed off the thorny acacia tree. “So,” Kerry, a L’Oréal spokesperson, continues, “you’re saying if I beat myself with a twig, my lashes will get stronger?”

This might be the perfect Kerry Washington moment: her childhood haunt, her love for environmentalism, her almost unexpected humor and her intense curiosity all in one animal kingdom moment. The 33-year-old actress recently moved back to New York City from Los Angeles after completing a six-month Broadway run in “Race.” She is also appearing in two new movies: the Black Panther opus “Night Catches Us” and the stellar ensemble “For Colored Girls,” in theaters November 5.

Regardless of race, Kerry has managed to stay relevant, and even sexy, in Hollywood. Her roles enviably range from indie to blockbuster, from a 15-year-old Latina in her first film, “Our Song,” to a drug-addicted male-to-female transsexual in “Life Is Hot in Cracktown” to a sleek assassin in “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.” In 2007 she co-directed and appeared in rapper and actor Common’s edgy video for “I Want You.” (“He called and said, ‘Hey, do you want to be the new girl in the video?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, if I can direct it.’ Sometimes I open my mouth and get myself in trouble like that.”) The truth is, you never know where Kerry is going to turn up next.

Case in point: After graduating from George Washington University, she went to live in India to study kathakali, a stylized form of drama that interprets classical Hindu literature through dance and mime. Says Kerry, “I wanted to go someplace where theater was a part of a spiritual and cultural tradition before I was just trying to book a Burger King commercial, you know?”

But, zoos aside, Kerry really took a walk on the wild side this year by appearing in David Mamet’s Broadway play “Race,” in which she portrayed a legal assistant at a firm asked to defend a man accused of sexually assaulting a Black woman. “That play was like church — there was so much talking back. People really bring their baggage,” says the actress.

“Race” costar David Alan Grier has one word for Kerry’s performance: fearless. “She didn’t have to do this play. She’s a movie star. I’m glad she did because every day somebody glamorous and cool came through, like Julian Bond. She classed up the joint. I kept trying to get her to tell President Obama to call me!”

In “Night Catches Us,” which arrives on-demand October 29 and in theaters on December 3, Kerry plays a former Black Panther turned civil rights lawyer. Set in 1976 post-Black Power movement Philadelphia, the film reunites her with Anthony Mackie, her costar in 2004′s “She Hate Me.” “As a kid, growing up, I had friends who were children of radicals. Many people think of the Black Panthers in caricature terms, the limited images in the media, the Black fists and Afro, and big machine gun. But here was a story about human beings. The people underneath the movement.”

For all this talk about race, Kerry doesn’t like to belabor the obvious: “I don’t want to ignore my Blackness. I just want to get to the point where my racial identity is simply a part of what makes me unique in the way being from the Bronx makes me unique, or being an Aquarius, or being born in 1977 and having hip-hop be a part of my heartbeat.”

Yes, Kerry Washington is a colored girl; one who perhaps hasn’t considered suicide, but has gone through her share of trials (overcoming an eating disorder, moving on from a failed engagement). Though she doesn’t follow any spiritual practice in any didactic way, Kerry relies on morning prayer, journaling and meditation to keep grounded. “My head is just so filled with… stuff,” she freely admits. Is it? You’d never know it looking into that luminous heart-shaped poker face. Kerry Washington, understanding that she is only human, laughs and then says, “Because I’m a good actor.”

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On the eve of the release of Tyler Perry’s “For Colored Girls,” BET.com sat down with Kerry Washington to discuss her role in the upcoming film, crazy internet rumors, aid to women in need and possibly dressing up as Nicki Minaj for Halloween!

There was some talk about Tyler Perry taking on “For Colored Girls.” Did you have any hesitations joining the film?
No. To be honest with you, something that we’ve all talked about, all of the girls, is who else could have done it. He has built up all of this capital in the industry that he is one of the very few people who could get this project done. So I really more than anything felt grateful that he was interested in bringing this material to a larger audience.

Do you have any words to share with the naysayers?
No, I think people will see it. One of the things that is so special about Tyler is that he is fearless. He is very courageous and he does not let other people’s doubts get in the way of him taking risks and scaling new heights — I think that’s huge. It is really important and I have enormous respect for his willingness to continue to expand his own repertoire.

What is your personal connection with your character Kelly?
I actually really did a lot of research. I spent time with a family member who works in child services. I spent time with her and did a lot of research about both training to be a therapist or social worker and also about what it is like in the field. When I first started the film I was on Broadway eight times a week playing this very intense, strong, fierce, aggressive and smart woman on stage. One of the things that attracted me to the role was that I felt like Kelly in “For Colored Girls” was almost the opposite. She is not in your face and aggressive. She is kind of a silent witness, just this walking emotional person. I feel as if she is there feeling for people. So I liked that she was kind of the opposite of what I had been doing on stage for six months.

Kelly desperately wanted to be a mother. Do you have babies on the brain?
No, not really. I mean, it is something that I think about, but I don’t identify with her real need with an urgency of it.

I call that the “Halle Berry Plan.”
Oh, what does that mean?

That’s when you wait until you are about 40-something and find a “sweet, young thing” and have a pretty little baby!
Right! [Laughs]

As a self-proclaimed urban hip-hop child, if you could play any hip-hop artist who would that be?
Gosh, I’ve never really thought about that. What a great question! I don’t really know, maybe Spinderella, she is so cool. I don’t know how much drama there is in her life, but she was always so cool to me!

Girl, I thought you were going to say Nicki Minaj!
Nicki Minaj is amazing! If I were going to get dressed up for Halloween this year, I would want to be Nicki Minaj!

Your “Night Catches Us” co-star Anthony Mackie had this to say about rappers-turned-actors: “I don’t go to the hospital and let the janitors perform surgery on me.” What is your take on that?
[Laughs] Oh, dear! [Pauses] I don’t like it when people put me in a box and limit my potential or decide what I am capable or not capable of. So, I try not to do that to other people as well. To me, the main thing is if you are going to move into a new territory and do something — you respect it. So I don’t have a problem with whatever people have done before they decided to be actors, as long as they come to the table ready to be committed to the craft and to learning and growing as an artist. I think what bothers a lot of people is the arrogance that people have that they think they can just show up and be actors, that there’s not a lot of work involved. As long as people are committed to the work, I don’t have a problem with it.

What is the craziest internet rumor you’ve ever heard about yourself — do you go to the blogs?
I don’t personally go to the blogs but every once in a while a girlfriend will tell me something hilarious that she’s read. But there is this crazy rumor, I think it might be on my IMDB or Wikipedia or something that I speak like seven languages and that is not true. [Laughs] It’s totally not true!

You’ve worked with Spike Lee, Robert Benton and Keenen Ivory Wayans. Seeing that you’ve worked with that very eclectic group, what makes Tyler different as a director?
Well one thing is the amount of power that he has cultivated in this business because it’s his studio. He owns the process in a different way, which is really wonderful because you know that his vision is going to be the final product. You don’t worry about another studio coming in and editing or paraphrasing his vision. Every director is completely different. I would also say that he is also very sensitive and intuitive, he really understands people.

You are doing remarkable work with the V-Counsel to end violence against women and girls. “For Colored Girls” helps brings this issue to the forefront. What is your advice for women and girls who are finding themselves in violent relationships?
That is such a nightmare. [Pauses] There is help out there. There are resources for help. You can go online to www.vday.org. There is lots of information about what you can do to join in the efforts to end violence against women. I think you need to ask for help and to remember that even though you feel alone, that you are not alone.

What are your words of encouragement when you find yourself having one of those days and the rainbow isn’t enuf?
I pray a lot, to be honest with you. I pray a lot! Often I will pray for the wisdom of what to say to myself. “Universe, God, Great Creator, give me the right language or the right feeling to feel toward myself.”

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Hollyscoop.com caught up with Kerry Washington at the ELLE’s 17th Annual Women In Hollywood Tribute. Kerry talks about her new movie, ‘For Colored Girls’, and how excited she was to work on the film with Janet Jackson. Interview by Violet Kanian.