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Tavis: Talented actor Isaiah Washington plays Dr. Preston Burke--like that name, Preston Burke--on the breakout ABC medical drama "Grey's Anatomy." He's also a favorite of director Spike Lee, who's cast him in films like "Crooklyn," "Clockers," and "Girl 6." Later this year, you can catch Isaiah alongside Jeff Bridges in the film "The Moguls."Isaiah, how you living?

Isaiah Washington: Ah, cautiously, sir.

Tavis: Ha ha ha!

Washington: Very cautiously.

Tavis: I like that answer. What are you so cautious about?

Washington: Oh, just everything's moving really, really fast, literally and figuratively speaking, but it's all a blessing. I cannot complain.

Tavis: Yeah. Well, part of it--I suspect what you reference when you say moving fast is the success of this show. This thing, like, came out of nowhere. Shonda Rhimes was on this program some weeks back. But this show, like, came out of nowhere, and it's a hit, with people of color in the cast, no less.

Washington: And we're living to see it.

Tavis: Yeah. Ha ha ha!

Washington: We're actually living to see it.

Tavis: And it's only 2005.

Washington: Only 2005. Yeah. The long and short of it is that I--Did a lot of major films, a lot of motion pictures, obviously, but I did a film that didn't have a great time on, and the character--I pretty much looked at the writing on the wall and said, "You know what? I've been a supporting actor in a lot of movies, but I really haven't had an opportunity to be a part of something that I can say all the way around it is just superior in a long time, since Spike Lee, since 'Love Jones.'" Worked with three films with Joel Silver, but I said, "You know what? I'm getting typed, and I'm straying from the path of what I really want to do," and I remember asking my agent, my film agent, who was very against it. He said, "Well, we'll look at some pilots." So he said, about--He said OK. Two weeks later, I had to bring it back up, and I said I'd like to look at some pilots. He said, "Are you serious?" I said, "I'm--I'm dead serious. I'm really looking for something different." And out of ten scripts, "The Surgeons" that it was called then with Shonda Rhimes' script, Tavis, when I say it's a page-turner, it was like "Love Jones" or "True Crime," those films that I've been a part of that I felt really good about, "Clockers." I said--By the time I got to page 13, I said, "I want to be in that room. I don't care if I have to audition. I just want to play the dirt on the floor. Just let me meet this Shonda Rhimes. Just get me in that room." And sure enough, I got in, tested for a part that I didn't get. It went to Patrick Dempsey. Got passed over by the networks, felt like I was kicked by a mule. I couldn't believe I wasn't gonna be a part of something--

Tavis: Your agent said, "See? I told you we shouldn't have done it."

Washington: Yeah, right, right, right. Yeah. And I couldn't believe it. I was wrong. This was so good. I mean, I know--I know my stuff. I know this. By the fourth day, I got a call from Shonda Rhimes, and she said, 'Do you still want to be a part of the show?' And I said, "You know what? You're my Lorraine Hansberry. I just want your words. I mean, you have your pulse on humanity. And it's beyond diversity. I just want your words. This is something that I can use. This is like a fuel for my kind of car that I can go really fast on," and she said, "Well, OK." I got a call the next day on my way to another meeting for another TV show that I was going to end up doing, and they said, "Do you still want to be a doctor?" And I said, "What do you mean?" "'Grey's Anatomy' wants you to you play Dr. Burke. The guy that they had had to fall out." Rest is history.

Tavis: God works in mysterious ways, doesn't He?

Washington: Always. Always. Absolutely.

Tavis: Tell me--When you mentioned a moment ago that you wanted to make the jump to TV or considered going to television because you thought you were being typed, you thought you were being typecast, in what way? What way did you think you were being typecast?

Washington: Well, the last film I participated in, I had to audition to play a criminal in that film.

Tavis: Ha ha ha ha! That's the funniest line I've heard in a while. "I had to audition..."

Both: "to play a criminal."

Washington: That I had been making a living off of by infusing humanity, by bringing some intelligence, I had to--And I'll say it. It was--The film was for Ron Shelton, "Hollywood Homicide," and basically they told me we were making "Live and Die in L.A." I thought it was a serious dramatic piece, and then in the middle of what it was called, from "Two Cops," to "Hollywood Homicide," Ron said we're making a comedy. And I said, "Well, there are people dying," and we were talking about hip-hop, and the first sequence you have is rappers being killed. What's so funny about that? And of course, when I get in, there's always a bit of a challenge of talking to the directors about where this character should go, and Harrison Ford had his ideas. He wanted me to hold the gun sideways, and I said no. He wanted me to speak with Ebonics, and I said no. And it got down to the point it felt like, well, I was too intelligent for the part, and I said, "Well, I auditioned with the words you had to get the job, but I thought we were gonna be able to corroborate and collaborate and try to make this guy a little bit more, less than one dimension. And once I realized that at the height of this kind of career that I said I was supposed to be having for myself and I'm still having these awkward conversations about characterization, I realized I need to do something different.

Tavis: You call them awkward conversations, but when you throw names around, like--You were very courageous to do this just now.

Washington: Yeah.

Tavis: Even more courageous to do what did you back then.

Washington: Absolutely.

Tavis: You call them awkward conversations, Isaiah, but when you are--When you are, respectfully, and I'm not casting aspersion on either, but bucking up against a Ron Silver and a Harrison--

Washington: Joel Silver.

Tavis: Joel Silver. I'm sorry. Joel Silver. And a Harrison Ford, where do you find the courage to do that?

Washington: Ossie Davis. Ossie Davis is the reason I'm sitting here today. When I decide--I came out of the private sector as an engineer. I was studying aerospace engineering. I had a life-altering experience. I didn't want to do what I wanted to do at the age of 23. Someone gave me a book called "Oscar Brockett," and I didn't know anything about acting, didn't know anything about the world of theater, and inside of that book, Tavis, was a name, Ossie Davis, and a picture of Ossie Davis, and it said he had--he created the Howard Players, and I was in Washington, D.C., living in Gaithersburg at the time. So I stopped everything I was doing. Probably was depressed and didn't know it. A friend took me to go see "She's Gotta Have It" the same day. I put two and two together. I said Ossie Davis is an actor at the Howard Players. The Howard University is not too far from my house. "She's Gotta Have It.' This is what I want to do. If people could look like this on-screen and this guy named Spike Lee is doing this kind of work, then I want to do that. Didn't know anything about acting other than this book, Ossie Davis, and Spike Lee, and I said in 1986 that in 10 years, I'll have my Master's or I'll have my undergrad and this and that and the other, and I will be making my first film in 1996 with Spike Lee. Well, by 1996, I was working with Ossie Davis, shooting "Get On the Bus" here in L.A. That was my fourth film.

Tavis: I want to just touch you, man. Maybe some of this--

Washington: True story.

Tavis: Maybe some of this will rub off, man, rub off on me. God.

Washington: So, I mean, bucking the system or agitating go as far back as Frederick Douglass. It goes back--I operate out of truth. I operate out of--out of position of our ancestry. I operate out of what is right, and if something is wrong, then it's very difficult for me, whether I'm getting paid or not--And I've been working in this business where I wasn't getting paid, where I have to address, I have to have an opportunity to speak up and say is there another alternative, is there another option to playing this character this way? And keep in mind I have to always be mindful of our images, and that's something that I've always been a part of, and many times, I've contributed to things that weren't necessarily positive because my people were promising me, well, if I work with this big, A-list star, if I work with that A-list star, then you'll get to be the--you know, the guy to work on more quality A-list projects, and it just never happened.

Tavis: Is it disappointing, though, when you do a project that has value, like a "Love Jones," which I just saw for the umpteenth time the other night on--The Bravo channel, somewhere's running it. IMC or somebody. I love that picture and was so disappointed that it did not do better and quite frankly didn't even do better--didn't do as well with black folk as it should have done, much less beyond that, 'cause it wasn't a love--It was a universal love story. It wasn't just a black love story. But when you take the courage to do something like this and it doesn't connect in the way that you might have hoped, do you feel bad about that?

Washington: No, 'cause 10 years later, I'm sitting here on "Grey's Anatomy," playing another positive role, another position of authority, and playing at the height of my intellect, and not relying on alcohol or drugs or weaponry to address my power, just using my mere--my being, my person. And I knew that, reading "Love Jones," that for once, a lot of African-Americans would come up to me and say, "Wow. We haven't seen you like this. You're not doing anything. You guys are just sitting around, talking. You know, where's the forties? You know, where's the profanity? Where's--" Where's love, man? It's love, and love equals humanity, and that's what we are about as a people, and that's all I've ever really been trying to do is stay the course and be that person, that vessel, and it's been difficult. I've been saying no. I could have been a multimillionaire years ago if I just said yes to all the certain projects, and I've worked with a lot of big names, the Clint Eastwoods, the Warren Beattys. I got Warren Beatty to come on your show. We were doing "Bulworth." And I still talk to him, and we still talk about politics and imagery and what we have to do as African-Americans for ourselves and stop waiting for people to do that.

Tavis: Speaking of African-Americans and doing for ourselves, you, like a few other people I've talked to of late, have done some digging back into your African roots.

Washington: Absolutely.

Tavis: What'd you find out?

Washington: Well, I found out through my DNA, the mitochondrial DNA on my maternal side, is that I am a--directly related to the Mende, Temne people out of Sierra Leone. The most famous Mende to date is Joseph Cinque, who took over the "Amistad," so I'm connected to that wonderful legacy, and on my paternal side, my father's side and all his father's fathers are Mbundu, or Kimbundu out of Angola, and I can't wait to get to both of the countries to see what I can invest in.

Tavis: What does it do for you--My mind goes back to "Roots" obviously. What does it do for you to have, at a certain point in your life, to have discovered what those roots are for Isaiah Washington.

Washington: Freedom, man. A quiet power for me. Because I've been searching for a long time, Tavis. I've gone from locks to goatees to this to proving that I'm African and I'm African-American, and I no longer have to hold on to these very outward kind of scenarios anymore or all the literature. I've found a bookend to all the literature that I've ever read about Africa, 'cause now I don't have to go, "Soweto," wear the kente cloth, or hang out at all of the film festivals, African festivals all over the world, because I'm very clear now that there's Angola and Sierra Leone, that if I can, with my black dollars, that I'd like to be able to go back and help in some kind of way.

Tavis: I've said many times, as my friends know and fans know, many times in a number of forms that Isaiah Washington is one of my favorite people. Now you know why. Isaiah, nice to see you. Glad to have you on.

Washington: Absolutely.

Tavis: The show is "Grey's Anatomy" on ABC. I'm sure you are checking it out, given the ratings, but if you haven't, check it out. You'll love the show as much as you loved, I'm sure, listening to Isaiah Washington. That's our show for tonight. You can catch me on public radio this weekend and every weekend on PRI, Public Radio International. Check your local listings. I'll see you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from Los Angeles. Thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith.