The one thing Denzel Washington hates being called: “I don’t know what that means”
Whether he likes it or not, Denzel Washington is a movie star. Not just any movie star, either, but one of the biggest and most popular of the modern era and one of the very few remaining names in Hollywood who can open a movie and sell it to the masses without needing anything else besides his presence.
It’s a formula that studios have been leaning into for years, and it almost always works: take Washington, cast him in a leading role, and the job is basically half-done already. Paying customers will do the rest, with his brand so strong that people are guaranteed to show up regardless of what he’s doing.
That said, his action thrillers tend to fare the best. Whenever a poster features Washington holding a gun, a strong opening at the box office is virtually guaranteed. To underline that point, of his last ten action-packed releases dating back to Tony Scott’s 2009 remake of The Taking of Pelham 123, a pattern emerges that’s existed ever since he first strapped up back in Ricochet two decades previously.
Of those ten blockbusters, in which he took top billing on every occasion outside of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II, five of them debuted in the top spot, four of them opened in second, and the other one scored a third-placed finish. That’s an incredible track record, which is merely one of the many reasons why Washington is celebrated as one of the most bankable stars in the business.
He’s someone who’s worked in Hollywood for over 40 years; he lives in Los Angeles, and he’s made 45 features as either an actor, director, or producer since 1990, a period in which he’s only performed in four plays. And yet, the two-time Academy Award winner bristles at the suggestion that he’s anything other than a stage actor who happens to make a lot of movies.
“What’s the definition of a Hollywood actor?” he rhetorically asked CBS. “Myself, I’m from Mount Vernon. I don’t know what ‘Hollywood’ means. Somebody who’s famous on film? A film actor, a great success on film? I’m a stage actor who does film; it’s not the other way around. I did stage first. I learned how to act on stage, not on film.”
Even though he’s appeared in over ten times as many films as he has plays in the last 35 years, don’t call Washington anything other than a stage actor. He’s an icon, a legend, an inspiration to several generations, an Oscar winner, one of the best in the business, and many other superlatives, but one thing he’ll never accept is being branded as a Hollywood superstar despite the evidence to the contrary being stacked several storeys high.
