Kerry Washington smoulders on the cover of Uptown magazine’s December/January 2013 issue, which was shot by Nino Muñoz, wearing a vintage sheer lace dress, with the rest of the all-black editorial seeing her wearing Moschino, Theyskens’ Theory, Elizabeth & James and Isabel Marant.

The 35-year-old actress has been nominated for a pair of NAACP Image Awards for her work on ABC’s hit series ‘Scandal’ and ‘Django Unchained’, out this month.

Due to recent events in the US, the ‘Django Unchained’ premiere was cancelled, so we will look forward to Kerry strutting her stuff on the red carpet in the new year.

In her interview the actress talks about choosing movie roles, what roles attract her and her latest movie ‘Django Unchained’.

This issue is out now. You can read her interview over at UptownMagazine.com or check out the extracts below.

On choosing her movie roles: “If I were to say it’s okay to play a lawyer but not a maid, or it’s okay to play a professor but not a slave, that would be sort of spitting on the legacy of my grandmother, who was a maid on Park Avenue for years, or my ancestors in South Carolina, who came from slavery.”

On ‘Django Unchained’: “I’ve never seen slavery dealt with this way before in film. So often it’s a white character who’s the savior of black people…. We should have a plethora of visions and interpretations of who we are as a nation. This is not necessarily the film I would make about slavery.”

On what roles attract her: “If you look at my body of work, I’ve always taken huge risks. I’ve played prostitutes, drug addicts, pimping lesbians. I do work I’m drawn to.”

Credit: Nino Muñoz for Uptown Magazine