“Whose voice is that?” (Exclusive)

Playing a women’s army corps officer in Tyler PerryWorld War II drama The six triple eight, Kerry Washington added an edge to her voice—and her three children didn’t recognize it.

“When my kids saw the trailer for the movie, they were like, ‘Whose voice is that? It doesn’t even sound like you.’ It was really funny,” said Washington, 47, who shares her children with her husband, an actor and former NFL star Nnamdi Asomugha.

Did Washington practice what she calls the “barking” tone at home? “No, I wouldn’t get away with using that voice with my kids,” she says with a laugh.

The Emmy winnerwho has also appeared on Broadway in the plays Race and American sonrelied on her past experience to help land the role of groundbreaking Major Charity Adams.

Related: See Kerry Washington and Ebony Obsidian in Tyler Perry’s First Look The six triple eight (Exclusive)

“I am super grateful for my theater education. I know how to breathe and speak from my diaphragm, and I’m also really thankful for my Shondaland training that I know how to metabolize multiple monologues in a week,” Washington says, nodding to her character Olivia Pope on Shonda Rhimes series Scandal.

“So those two things were really parts of my toolbox that I leaned into,” she adds.

“I worked with a voice coach and Tyler and really spent a lot of time thinking about how to make sure I was doing something I’d never been before and becoming someone I’d never been before. And the voice had a lot to do with it,” adds Washington, who also speaks with a Southern accent. (The real Adams was from South Carolina.)

The Six Triple Eight – as also stars Oprah WinfreyEbony Obsidian and Susan Sarandon — tells the incredible true story of the only all-black unit of the Women’s Army Corps that served in Europe during World War II.

The 855 women, led by Adams, were tasked with breaking through a stomach mail and sorting through 17 million pieces of undelivered correspondence so the soldiers overseas could communicate with their loved ones at home.

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In addition to terrible working conditions the women faced in the facilities (rats, no heat), they also struggled with racism and sexism from their fellow soldiers.

“They didn’t send us because they thought we could do it. We’re here because they’re sure we can’t,” Washington, as Adams, tells his unit in the trailer.

The six triple eight now streaming on Netflix.

For more on Kerry Washington and The six triple eightpick up the new issue of PEOPLE.

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