Isaiah Washington Plays Victim...on Big Screen
Looks like Isaiah Washington's rehab worked—at least on his career.
The Grey's Anatomy star has landed his first gig since entering treatment for the gay slur heard 'round the world last fall.
Washington will fill his forthcoming Grey's Anatomy hiatus with the indie feature The Least of These, a thriller in which he portrays a Catholic priest who returns to teach at the high school where he was sexually abused in his youth.
Upon arriving at the school, Washington's character learns that he is replacing a teacher who had gone missing amid allegations of molesting several of his own students, one of whom may be responsible for the teacher's MIA status.
The film, budgeted at $1 million, will shoot throughout Los Angeles during the month of June.
First-time writer-director Nathan Scoggins told the Hollywood Reporter that he approached Washington about taking on the role after reading an interview in which the disgraced actor waxed dejectedly about how he wasn't receiving any offers of film or TV work in the wake of his much-publicized utterance.
Scoggins conceded that bringing Washington and his off-screen baggage to the project was a "risky" casting in light of its subject matter, but said that the film would in no way equate pedophilia with homosexuality.
"We focus exclusively on the corruption of other priests who choose not to step in and say something," he told the Reporter. "Isaiah's character stays razor focused on the situation and on not condemning a whole section of the population."
Scoggins said Washington took on the part because, not in lieu, of the subject matter.
"This is part of him moving forward and making restitution."
In addition to his new gig, Washington is working behind the scenes on another production. Last month he made a $25,000 donation to a West African computer-animation project that will bring to pixilated life the plight of Sierra Leone natives during 1805, at the height of the slave trade. The completed film will be distributed to students worldwide.
As for his future on Grey's Anatomy, as recently as last month not even Washington himself could speak definitively on his prospects. While the actor was conspicuously absent from trade reports of major pay raises for the cast, he is nonetheless contracted through the series' sixth season.
However, when asked by Entertainment Weekly whether Dr. Preston Burke would live to spend another year roaming the melodramatic halls of Seattle Grace, Washington simply said, "I don't know the facts of what's going on."
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