Denzel Washington’s complete lack of interest in the work of Stanley Kubrick: “I’d be the one looking to rob you when you came out”
Nobody is obligated to worship at the altar of Stanley Kubrick, but considering he’s one of the greatest directors in history and Denzel Washington is one of cinema’s best-ever actors, it would make sense if the latter were a fan of the former.
However, the opposite is true, with the two-time Academy Award-winning star having a relationship with all things Kubrickian that sounds apathetic at best. A lot of it has to do with Washington’s upbringing, though, with the art of performance and a love of the moving image not truly beginning to develop until he was a college student.
He was raised in a religiously strict household that ensured his eyes would never be opened to the sheer depth, breadth, and range of films on offer. Still, even when he began widening his horizons and gaining appreciation for the finest features ever made and the people who made them, Kubrick was never at the top of his list.
In fact, Collider asked Washington to name his favourite entry from Kubrick’s back catalogue, and his response was illuminating. “I’m not a movie buff. I’m not a big movie fan,” he admitted. “I was in the street when he was making movies. It’s the ones in the ’70s? Yeah, I’d be the one outside looking to rob you when you came out of a Kubrick movie. So, I wasn’t a real film buff.”
Wanton acts of would-be criminality aside, Washington explained that he hadn’t grown up around a wide collection of movies covering multiple genres, styles, and tones, and even when he became a cinemagoer himself, he was less concerned with existentialist arthouse fare and more preoccupied with seeing escapist entertainment that appealed to his sensibilities.
“I didn’t start acting until I was 20 years old, and I start really going to the movies until I was 21, 22, 23,” he explained, before quickly correcting himself. “That’s not true. As a teenager, I went to see movies like Shaft and Super Fly.” Clearly, Kubrick wasn’t on the menu back then, and not much has changed in the half-century since, from the sound of it.
Washington was nine years old when Dr Strangelove was released, 13 when 2001: A Space Odyssey broke new ground, 16 when A Clockwork Orange created controversy, 20 when Barry Lyndon came along, and 25 when The Shining hit the big screen. He was of a generation to see the majority of them at his local multiplex, but it never even crossed his mind.
Christopher Nolan would no doubt be aghast at Washington’s unfamiliarity and borderline apathy towards Kubrick’s work, but he clearly didn’t need to become an avid student of cinema to carve out a career that’s made them both all-time greats on either side of the camera.
