The classic sitcom Denzel Washington was “convinced not to” star in
Many big-name movie stars got their start in television, think Leonardo DiCaprio in The New Lassie, Will Smith in The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and George Clooney in hospital drama ER. Well, another legendary actor who started on a televised medical ward is Man on Fire and Gladiator II star Denzel Washington – but things could have been very different.
Washington had followed up university, where he studied drama and journalism, with a stint in theatre, before he landed a couple of roles in small-budget films at the end of the 1970s. But when he returned to a live production called A Soldier’s Play in 1981 his performance attracted considerable praise and led to TV execs taking note.
He was approached to play the role of Dr Phillip Chandler on a new show set in a hospital in Boston, but because he had already done some film roles, his representatives weren’t too keen on switching to the small screen, as he told Entertainment Weekly: ”I remember early on my agent talked to me about not getting caught up in television. She convinced me not to do (hit US sitcom) The Jeffersons, which I’d read for. But St. Elsewhere had so many characters, you could get sort of lost in the sauce and be able to sneak out and do films. And it was a great show.”
While The Jeffersons ran for some 11 seasons, St Elsewhere ended up running for six, and Washington appeared in them all, with the show earning ten Emmy awards during its spell. In the final year of production, Washington took time out to film Richard Attenborough’s Cry Freedom, a film about apartheid in South Africa that picked up three Oscar nominations, including one for Washington as Best Supporting Actor. Then, in 1989, he went one better, winning a ‘Best Actor’ Oscar for his role in Glory as a slave turned soldier during the American Civil War.
After a first movie with Spike Lee in 1990 and Mo’ Better Blues, he paired up a second time two years later for Malcolm X in a title role that’s considered one of his highlights from a long career. Again, he was nominated for an Oscar, and it sparked a run of movies for Washington that propelled him to the top of the industry, with movies like Philadelphia, Crimson Tide, The Hurricane and The Bone Collector all doing big numbers at the box office and bringing Washington considerable acclaim.
Although he picked up yet another Oscar nomination for The Hurricane, it was probably Training Day in 2001 that is the movie many people think of as the ultimate Denzel film. Pitting Washington opposite Ethan Hawke as LAPD officers moving through gangland territory, it finally earned Washington an Academy Award for ‘Best Actor’ and a nomination for Hawke.
Over the next 20 years, Washington went on to star in several acclaimed dramas and thrillers, earning some nine Oscar nominations in the process. He’s currently in another Spike Lee film, Highest 2 Lowest, an adaptation of the Akira Kurosawa police procedural from 1964, High and Low.
He’s also signed on for Black Panther 3, the Marvel superhero movie due to hit screens in 2028, directed by Sinners’ Ryan Coogler. In the meantime, however, Washington is in New York busy filming Here Comes the Flood, a heist movie co-starring Robert Pattinson.
