Kerry Washington credits Julia Stiles with teaching her to stand up to directors

Kerry Washington has credited Julia Stiles with teaching her to stand up for herself on film and TV sets.

During an appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show on Wednesday, host Drew asked the Scandal actress to take part in a segment called Behind the Scenes.

While reflecting on some of her early roles, Kerry revealed that she learned "so much" from Julia while making the 2001 teen dance film, Save the Last Dance.

"I learned so much from Julia because she had done a bunch of films, and this was my first studio film. One day, it was really, really, really cold, we were shooting in Chicago in the winter," she recalled. "And we had these really cute outfits but they weren't very warm. And the director (Thomas Carter) was like, 'One more time, one more time.' Finally, Julia said, 'I'll do it as many times as you want when you take off your coat.'"

Kerry then recounted Thomas's stunned reaction to the request.

"He said, 'What?' and took off his coat. We did it one more time and that was it," the 46-year-old smiled.

Elsewhere, Kerry also described how she was impressed with the way Jamie Foxx led the cast and crew when they were making the 2004 biographical drama Ray.

"However the number one (on the call sheet) acts, everybody else takes their cues for how to be on set. And when people say I'm a good number one, if that's true, I always say I owe it all to Jamie because he is the best number one on the call sheet ever," she added.