In the blessed way that is often part of the mercurial and unforgiving acting profession, life seems to have imitated art for rising star Linara Washington — thanks to a leading film role that mirrors her own hopes and dreams.

A theater-trained transplant from Chicago, Washington plays opposite Tyson Beckford as seamstress Lucy Waters in “The Kings of the Evening,” a drama about Blacks trying to survive the Great Depression in rural Georgia.

The film also features Emmy Award winners Lynn Whitfield (“The Josephine Baker Story”) and Glynn Turman (“A Different World,” HBO’s “The Wire”).

Creatively, the movie is the collaboration of a White father/son co-writing and producer/directing team, Robert Page Jones and Andrew P. Jones, who used a spiritual African tradition as the basis of the story.

“Oswenkas,” the Zulu version of the word of the word “swank,” is a style contest where despite the impoverished living conditions, men compete for dignity and respect, and the chance to feel like a “King,” if for just an evening.

After playing to enthusiastic film festival audiences over the last two years and picking up awards in Los Angeles, San Diego and Houston, Kings is set for a small theatrical release at the end of February in about 20 to 30 markets across the country.

The younger Jones said screening information will soon be posted on the film’s Web site kingsoftheevening.com.

“About five years ago, my father showed me a newspaper article about the oswenkas and I thought it was a fascinating tradition that had never been seen on film before,” recalled Andrew.

“While we didn’t know anything about South Africa, my father grew during the Great Depression in the South in predominantly Black neighborhoods. We set it then because we felt there was something similar, a desire to find self-respect in a time when there wasn’t any.”

Despite receiving a good deal of industry buzz, Andrew revealed that mainstream Hollywood baulked at funding a “positive, Black period piece.”

They subsequently financed the film themselves through their own production company, Picture Palace Films, LLC.

As for casting Washington, Andrew revealed that she was actually one of the last actresses to be seen in an exhaustive audition process.

“We just weren’t seeing anybody that really captured the part,” he said. “Linara came in on the last day and she was so well-prepared. She really was Lucy Waters.”

For Washington, who had originally planned to go see an opera performance out of town, the stars had also aligned.

“When my agent called and said she had an audition for a Black film, I kind of scoffed,” she admitted. “The kind of thing has come to signify Black film in Hollywood, well … it has its place. Anyway, I read the script and fell in love with it. I stayed up all night to prepare. I really felt a kinship with [Lucy Waters], like that could have been me.”

She continued: “She is someone wanting more out of life and knows she has the potential to make it happen, but it’s just out of her grasp. That really resonated, especially in my life as an actor and as a Black woman having seen all the things my parents have done to make sure I succeed.”

In fact, born in the little South Carolina town of Beaufort, Washington is the high-achieving eldest daughter (she has two sisters) of an African-American preacher’s son and a Brazilian woman.

Her father’s college admissions job would move the family to 14 different states, but the acting bug took hold during a school program in Minnesota when Washington attended numerous productions at the famous Guthrie Theatre.

Earning a place to study pre-med biology at the University of Chicago, she later switched to English Language and Literature only telling her parents on graduation day.

Following performances at acclaimed, local companies like Steppenwolf, Lookingglass, Northlight and the Tony Award-winning Victory Gardens, Washington headed to Hollywood after getting a supporting role as Keisha, the cute and sassy receptionist in “Barbershop 2.”

That led to recurring television roles in “American Dreams” and “E.R.” and a number of guest appearances in “Cold Case,” “Close to Home” and “Without a Trace.”

On the horizon is a yet untitled commercial film where she is set to play the protagonist in a werewolf version of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and may team up again with her Kings’ director for a ‘70s film about Nazis in Brazil.

“I went into ‘Kings’ absorbing and appreciating every moment because so many actors work hard to have an opportunity like this,” said Washington, who touchingly revealed that her father cried when she told him she got the part.

“I couldn’t believe I got to work with Lynn Whitfield, who was the most gracious, humble, beautiful and stunning person. Tyson is great guy and a lot of fun and watching Glynn was like taking an acting class for free.”