To celebrate the release of in-your-face thriller American Gangster, available now to add to your list, Blockbuster.co.uk's Marshall Julius looks at the charmed life and incredible career of superstar Denzel Washington.
Back when Denzel Washington was just a lad, his mum took him to get a haircut. At the barber's shop he met a nice old lady who asked for his autograph. When his mother asked why, she said, "Because one day, he's going to entertain millions." Later Denzel and his mother found out the woman was rumoured to be some sort of local fortune teller, and in this instance, for sure, she was right on the money.
The first African-American actor to receive two Academy Awards, Denzel Hayes Washington Jr was born on December 28, 1954, in New York, USA. Named after his father who was himself named after the doctor - Doctor Denzel - who delivered him, he was the middle of three children. The father of four himself, while his folks split up when he was just 14, Denzel has managed to buck the Hollywood trend towards divorce by remaining married to the same woman since 1983.
"She puts up with me," says Denzel of his wife Pauletta. "I think, also, in a way the traveling helps. We're able to travel together and also be apart sometimes. Not everybody gets to live like that. Twenty-five years now. You start to pat yourself on the back when you look around see how very few couples have made it that far."
As his father was a Pentecostal minister and his mother was a beautician and former gospel singer, you could say passionate, public performances were in his blood, yet acting was far from his first career choice. At first Denzel studied Biology in the hopes of becoming a doctor, later switching to Political Science and Journalism, with the dream of a writer's life. Eventually though he caught the acting bug while appearing in a student drama production, and upon graduation he moved to San Francisco and enrolled at the American Conservatory Theatre, leaving after only a year to seek work as an actor.
"I was trained in the theatre," says the star. "So it was instilled in me as a young performer to take chances and not to worry about all that, because failure is a part of growth. If you're gonna fail, fail big and take chances. So I've done that, or I've tried to do that."
Versatile and charismatic, Washington had no difficulty finding work on both the small and big screens, co-starring with George Segal in 1981's Carbon Copy, and landing the plum role of Dr Chandler in hit medical show
St Elsewhere (1982-1988). In 1987, Denzel dominated the screen as Steve Biko in Richard Attenborough's powerful biopic
Cry Freedom, and in 1989 won his first Oscar, for Best Supporting Actor, for his portrayal of a runaway slave who becomes a soldier in
Edward Zwick's Civil War masterpiece
Glory.
Throughout the Nineties Denzel starred in a succession of big budget productions like
The Pelican Brief (1993),
Philadelphia (1993),
Crimson Tide (1995),
The Preacher's Wife (1996) and
Courage Under Fire (1996), by which time he was pulling in $10 million a movie - chicken feed by today's standards as for the last five years his average salary has been double that amount. On a less mercenary note, Denzel's Philadelphia co-star
Tom Hanks once commented that working with Washington was "like going to film school," adding that he learned more about acting by watching Denzel than from anyone else.
"In any craft or artistic endeavor you want to do different things," says Washington. "You want to go to different places, you want to find different ways to go about it. You may have your constants, but you're looking to go into new territories, new angles, new challenges. So that's how it is for me as an actor. I couldn't play the same guy eight times and I don't have to. I think I've said all of my career, I'm not a celebrity. I'm not a movie star. I'm just an actor who is more popular right now. I don't even know what a movie star is."
A favourite of directors as diverse as
Spike Lee, Ed Zwick and action man
Tony Scott, Washington has played more real life characters than your average movie star, playing Steve Biko in Cry Freedom (1987), Malcolm X in
Malcolm X (1992), Reuben Carter in
The Hurricane (1999), Herman Boone in
Remember the Titans (2000), Frank Lucas in American Gangster (2007) and Melvin Tolson in The Great Debators (2007), a film he also directed after making his directorial debut in 2002 with
Antwone Fisher.
In 2001 Denzel finally earned a Best Actor Oscar for his role in
Training Day, only the second African-American actor to win an Academy Award in that category after
Sidney Poitier. "I'm very proud to be black," says the star, "but black is not all I am. That's my cultural historical background, my genetic makeup, but it's not all of who I am nor is it the basis from which I answer every question."
Cerebral and meticulous in his film work, Washington is well known for the painstaking preparation he puts into every role. For his role as a boxer in The Hurricane, he spent a whole year working out with LA boxing trainer Terry Claybon. For The Pelican Brief, he spent months on the beat with Washington Post reporters. And for Courage Under Fire he trained at the National Training Centre at Fort Irwin in California, where he qualified on the M1A1 tank and the 120mm gun, participated in battle games and listened to audiotapes of tank battles in Desert Storm. Clearly, when the guy commits, he really commits.
"The acting coach Stanislavsky talks about cutting 90%," explains Denzel. "So you do research, research, research, then you drop it and listen when you're in the scene and know who you are. You never know how it's gonna come around. That's why you go out there and find out. It's because you need the human beings that hook you into the character. Maybe I'm not as imaginative as the average actor. I need some kind of a hook sometimes."
Named America's favourite movie star in a January 2008 poll, and well known for his many charitable endeavours, Washington is a rare talent with a big heart and a loving family. By all accounts, he appears to be living a perfect life. "I remain thankful for the gifts that I've been given," he says, "and I try to use them in a good way. A positive way."