Looks like Katherine Heigl and Patrick Dempsey aren’t the only ones spending Grey’s Anatomy’s hiatus productively. After all the controversy surrounding his gay slur, Isaiah Washington, cast member on Grey’s Anatomy, is set to star in a new movie.

In March, it was reported that Heigl and Dempsey would each be working on a new movie. Heigl is set to star in three films, 27 Dresses, Caffeine and Knocked Up, while Dempsey will star in the movie Made of Honor. As for Washington, he will be featured in the independent movie The Least of These.

The Least of These, a thriller, depicts Washington as a Catholic priest who returns to teach at the high school where he was sexually abused during his youth. Later, he discovers that he is substituting a teacher who had gone missing because of surfacing speculations and accusations of his molesting some of his own students, one of whom is responsible for the teacher’s departure.

Funded at $1 million, the movie will shoot throughout Los Angeles starting in June this year. Director Nathan Scoggins told Hollywood Reporter that taking in Washington in his debut directorial project was something very perilous. At any rate, his confidence in Washington surpassed all the negative publicity. Scoggins said, “We focus exclusively on the corruption of other priests who choose not to step in and say something. Isaiah's character stays razor focused on the situation and on not condemning a whole section of the population…this is part of him moving forward and making restitution."

At present, Washington is also working on another production, a West African computer-animation project in which he donated $25,000 a month ago. The said project aims to bring light to slave trade and the lives of Sierra Leone natives during 1805.

To catch more of Isaiah Washington, watch Grey’s Anatomy every Thursday at 9/8C on ABC.

-Kris, BuddyTV Staff Columnist

Source: E! Online

(Photo Courtesy of TV.com)