Washington went on to earn a Presidential Arts Scholarship to attend The George Washington University, graduating in 1998. She was in the cast of the 1996 PBS sketch comedy-style educational series Standard Deviants, and she appeared in the short “3D” and the feature film Our Song in 2000. She also co-directed and appeared in the music video for hip-hop artist Common’s song, “I Want You”, the fourth single off of his album Finding Forever.

Washington has also appeared in the recurring role of Chelina Hall on the ABC television series Boston Legal, and in several episodes of the A&E cable-TV series 100 Centre Street. She also appears in Maxwell’s “Bad Habits” video.

She is known for her roles as Ray Charles’s wife, Della Bea Robinson, in the film Ray (2004), as Idi Amin’s wife Kay in The Last King of Scotland, and as Alicia Masters, love interest of Ben Grimm, The Thing, in the live-action Fantastic Four films of 2005 and 2007. She performed with the Tada theater teen group and attended the Spence School in Manhattan, graduating in 1994. She was in the cast of the 1996 PBS sketch comedy-style educational series Standard Deviants, and she appeared in the short “3D” and the feature film Our Song in 2000. She went on to appear in several movies, including Save the Last Dance (2001), The Human Stain (2003), Spike Lee’s She Hate Me (2004), Ray (2004), Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Little Man (2006), I Think I Love My Wife (2007), and as a wife of 1970s Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the UK historical drama The Last King of Scotland (2006). Washington has also appeared in the recurring role of Chelina Hall on the ABC television series Boston Legal, and in several episodes of the A&E cable-TV series 100 Centre Street. She also co-directed and appeared in the music video for hip-hop artist Common’s song, “I Want You”, the fourth single off of his album Finding Forever. in 2010, she made her Broadway debut in David Mamet’s Race, alongside James Spader, David Alan Grier, and Richard Thomas.