Denzel Washington names the worst period of his career: “I had responsibilities”
If you look at all the Hollywood greats whose careers have lasted decades, they have all experienced periods when things went a bit pear-shaped. After all, Steven Spielberg once said that making any film is very hard, but making a good film is almost impossible. It, therefore, stands to reason that not every film in a long career will be a banger. Denzel Washington will attest to that, as he recently admitted there was one period in his career, which has spanned more than four decades, where he made a succession of bad movies.
In November 2024, Washington sat down with The Times to discuss his storied career. To the interviewer’s shock, he revealed that he’d never watched one of his own movies all the way through. He admitted, “I watch it so I know what I’m talking about. But I haven’t watched any film from my past from start to finish, not even Malcolm X. All you see is what you did wrong. Also, why would you do it anyway?” The iconic star also admitted that he doesn’t read reviews of his work because he worries that good or bad comments could affect how he approaches a performance.
However, this isn’t to say Washington is unaware of the prevailing opinion of his films. In truth, even if he’s never watched a whole one, he still knows which ones were good. He was even able to pinpoint which stage of his life featured his worst movies and he followed that up with a fascinating explanation about why they all came in that particular period.
Washington revealed that he believes everyone’s life has three stages. He explained, “You learn, earn and then you return — as in give back. So, if your life is 90 years long, up until 30 you learn, and from 30 to 60 you earn.”
This middle period – the earning stage – came in the 1990s for Washington, who was 36 when that decade began. In this period, he embraced being a leading man in Hollywood, with all the accoutrements that come with it. However, he confessed that his life situation meant that he couldn’t be motivated purely by art. After all, at that time, he had responsibilities at home. He explained, “With a great agent, my career built into making money, and so the earning kicked in, and then life also kicked in, with bills, four kids and a house.”
In essence, Washington was saying he began taking roles in the ’90s whose prime motivating factor was how big his paycheque would be. Naturally, this isn’t always conducive to making the most artistically daring or creatively satisfying films. The Gladiator II star admitted, “After Malcolm X, I made some real clunkers. Look them up — I won’t say their names.”
While he wouldn’t single any of the films out by name, it’s fairly obvious which ones Washington was referring to. A quick glance at his career post-Malcolm X reveals several dodgy efforts, such as the sci-fi misfire Virtuosity and the middling John Grisham adaptation The Pelican Brief. He also tangled with serial killers in Fallen and The Bone Collector in the wake of a glut of those films prompted by the success of Se7en. Both paled in comparison to Fincher’s bleak masterpiece, though, which Washington turned down – and later admitted that was a big mistake.
The star may be treating his decade slightly too harshly, though, as he also made several acclaimed films in the ’90s. Philadelphia, Crimson Tide, He Got Game, Courage Under Fire, and The Hurricane are all beloved, and Devil in a Blue Dress has built up a significant cult following over the years. These films all help offset the lesser efforts that have been rightly consigned to the cinematic scrap heap.
