(Cover) - EN Showbiz - Kerry Washington feels like she goes on a "head trip" when she's performing at times.

The American actress currently stars in TV political thriller Scandal and is also filming Quentin Tarantino's upcoming feature Django Unchained.

The roles are completely disparate, as Kerry plays high-powered crisis manager Olivia Pope in Scandal and a slave before the Civil War era in the southern United States in Django.

Kerry is in awe of the human range she covers through her profession.

"I go from playing arguably one of the most powerful women in the world to a slave in the 1800s who is not even considered a human being," she told People magazine. "It's a little bit of a head trip."

Should a catastrophe occur in reality, Kerry can't imagine handling the situation with the grace of her Scandal character Olivia.

"People ask me all the time about scandals and what I think should happen, but I have no clue," Kerry explained. "I'm not at all a crisis management person. But my privacy is very important to me, for sure."

Kerry's mother believes the star should have pursued an entirely different career path.

"[She wanted me to be] a lawyer or a psychiatrist," Kerry shared. "She used to say things like, Well, closing arguments are monologues,' and, Psychiatrists try to figure out the way other people think too!' " (C) Cover Media