Kerry Washington said the cast helped Ben Affleck rewrite Animals during rehearsal, turning the upcoming Netflix thriller into a moving target after the ensemble was set. She said the process gave the film an old-school theater feel, with the script still changing once the actors were in the room.
Washington on the rehearsal rewrite
Washington said, "Honestly, everybody was so collaborative. Like Ben, really, we had a rehearsal process where we all worked together on the script, and there's not a single actor in it who hasn't contributed." She added that Luis Gerardo Méndez and Adriana Paz wrote their scenes completely, while she, Steven Yeun, and Affleck workshopped one scene together.
That kind of rehearsal-led rewriting is the practical reason the film is drawing attention now. Kerry Washington Leads Imperfect Women Season 2 on Apple Tv+ Insecure Women Season 2 is a reminder that Washington has been carrying major screen projects across formats, and here she is also speaking from inside a film that evolved after the cast assembled.
Ben Affleck and the script
Affleck serves as director, producer, co-writer, and lead actor on Animals, which puts him at the center of both the set and the page. Washington said every actor contributed to the script, and she described the process as "old-school theater process," a setup that suggests the finished scenes were shaped in the room rather than locked before shooting.
He pushed that point even further, saying Washington brought so much to Mark and Abigail's marriage that he called her a co-director. That does not read like a standard actor-director divide; it reads like an ensemble that kept revising the film until the relationship at its center felt right.
Mark and Abigail in Animals
Washington plays Abigail in Animals, opposite Affleck as Mark Kimball, with Gillian Anderson, Steven Yeun, Adriana Paz, and Luis Gerardo Méndez also in the cast. Washington said the story turns on marriage, honesty, vulnerability, and authenticity, and that the characters begin to think it might be okay to be fully honest only when they feel they are losing everything.
The setup is sharp: Abigail is married to Los Angeles mayoral candidate Mark Kimball, and their son is kidnapped. Because the film is still described as upcoming, the key business question is not whether the cast shaped it, but which scenes now carry their fingerprints most clearly once Netflix releases it.
Matt Damon and Jennifer Garner
Before this version came together, Matt Damon and Jennifer Garner were once set to lead Animals. After production setbacks and recasting, the film moved forward with Washington, Anderson, Yeun, Paz, Méndez, and Affleck, and that delay appears to have changed more than the casting sheet.
In practice, the project now looks like a case study in how a rehearsal period can become part of the writing process. Affleck said he had "co-writers" in Washington, and Washington said the whole cast contributed, so the remaining question is straightforward: which exact scenes or story beats changed most after the final cast got into the room?
