Does Denzel Washington really hate movies as much as he claims?
“I don’t watch movies, man. I don’t go to the movies. I’m tired of movies,” proclaimed an actor.
To the average cinephile, these words cut deep, possibly feel like blasphemy coming from someone whose life is largely making movies. How could a person not love watching movies? How could someone not want to immerse themselves in cinema at all times? Do they not recognise the great beauty and profundity that can only be captured on film? Have they never sat in a darkened cinema and been transported somewhere magical?
The most troubling thing about these words is that they weren’t just uttered by a randomer on the street who wouldn’t know Martin Scorsese or Steven Spielberg from a hole in the head. Instead, they were said in a recent promotional interview for a remake of an Akira Kurosawa film by one of the most acclaimed directors of the last four decades, Spike Lee. Worst of all, they were said by Denzel Washington, one of the greatest movie stars American cinema has ever seen. How could he, of all people, not watch movies?!
Now, before going any further, it’s worth noting that Washington may be an incredible actor and one of the most charismatic sonsabitches who has ever appeared onscreen, but he’s also not exactly an easy guy to interview. He’s always been prickly and guarded, even in his younger years, and now that he’s 70, he’s unlikely to suddenly develop an overwhelming urge to be open and friendly with journalists. These days, most Washington interviews are characterised by short, sharp answers and a reticence to get too deeply involved in any conversation, interspersed with left-field bursts of humour that catch people off guard.
A great example of this came in 2024, when Collider asked Washington to name his favourite Stanley Kubrick movie. “I’m not a movie buff,” the star of more than 60 movies replied dismissively, “I’m not a big movie fan. I was in the street when he was making movies”. Then, with perfect “Oh my God, is he really saying this?” delivery, Washington grinned at the reporter and quipped, “I’d be the one outside looking to rob you when you came out of a Kubrick movie”.
This bizarre exchange can be read in one of three ways. You could believe that Washington, in fact, was truly a young street tough who loved to mug teen Kubrick nerds as they left the cinema fresh from the latest showing of one of his timeless masterpieces. However, considering he was raised in a strictly religious household with a Pentecostal minister father, I’d wager that’s pretty darn unlikely.
The second way to read it is that Washington does love movies and probably is a huge Kubrick fan, like most of us. He simply didn’t want to be put on the spot to name a favourite at that particular time, so he deflected the interviewer’s attention with a joke. Once again, though, I reckon that doesn’t fully add up, because he has been honest in the past that his religious upbringing contributed to him failing to develop an interest in cinema until his early 20s, when he’d already started acting. He wasn’t allowed to watch many movies growing up, and in his teens, the only things he was reportedly interested in were Blaxploitation films like “Shaft and Super Fly”.
Washington’s adolescence coincided with several of Kubrick’s best films, as he was between the ages of nine and 20 when Dr Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, and Barry Lyndon hit the world and gobsmacked cinephiles all around. It’s entirely possible, therefore, that he never got around to watching them, or never cared to see them, despite working in the movie business.
Sadly, the third way to read his gag, and his more recent comments, is that he’s telling the world the truth; we just don’t like hearing it. Maybe Washington doesn’t care all that much about movies, beyond acting in them, and outside of work hours, he’d rather do a million other things instead of watching a flick. Perhaps he’s been in Hollywood so long that he knows how the sausage is made, and that has taken away some of the magic of cinema for him.
The most depressing theory of all, though, is that the actor sees movies as his job, like we see our nine-to-five, and he’s not particularly interested in their artistic aspects. This could be why he doesn’t like talking about his films or his ‘craft’, why his responses sound so frank in comparison to other stars who have much more passion for cinema, and why he’s unlikely to watch a film in his free time.
“Making a movie is a luxury,” he once told The Hollywood Reporter, “It’s a gift. Don’t get it twisted: it’s just a movie. It ain’t that big a deal”.
