Denzel Washington has said he was part of some “real clunkers” during the 1990s after making Malcolm X.
Washington’s role in Spike Lee‘s biographical epic was a landmark point in his career, for which he received two Oscar nominations. However, he later admitted he was involved in a lot of sub-par projects to keep himself going financially.
Although Washington doesn’t name and shame any of the films he is referring to, he did make numerous films at the end of the 20th century that weren’t received well by critics. These include the 1995 sci-fi thriller Virtuosity, the 1998 terrorism drama The Siege, the 1999 serial killer mystery The Bone Collector as well as 1993’s The Pelican Brief and 1996’s The Preacher’s Wife, which also didn’t hold up well with critics or audiences.
“Look them up — I won’t say their names. They are all in the 1990s,” he told The Times. “But I was earning. I had responsibilities.”
“In life, you learn, earn and then you return — as in give back,” he continued. “So if your life is 90 years long, up until 30 you learn and from 30 to 60 you earn. So in that era I was earning… 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.”
Washington added: “I see very few films,” he said. “So I can’t tell you I grew up loving movies and would escape in them.”
The actor also admitted that he rarely rewatches his own films. “I watch it so I know what I’m talking about,” he said, insinuating he’ll rewatch films so he can promote them. “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?”
In other news, Washington recently revealed that a same-sex kiss scene he filmed for Gladiator 2 was cut from the movie.
After being asked “how gay” the Roman Empire was, Washington replied: “I actually kissed a man in the film but they took it out. They cut it. I think they got chicken.
“I kissed a guy full on the lips and they, I guess they weren’t ready for that yet,” he added, before joking that in the sequence he “killed him about five minutes later”, describing it as a “kiss of death.”
Reviewing Gladiator 2, NME‘s Alex Flood awarded the movie three stars and said: “If you loved Gladiator, it’s odds-on you’ll enjoy this too. It’s got all of the same exciting bits – swordfighting, rousing speeches, nasty poshos getting what they deserve.
“The problem is that’s all it gives you. You want to feel like you’re watching Maximus lift off his helmet and deliver that iconic monologue for the first time again. You want the thrill of a core memory being unlocked. You want to know you’ll be quoting Mescal’s lines to your mates in the pub for the next 10 years. Gladiator 2, piously respectful as it is, can only offer a faded memory of that experience. There was a dream that was Rome – and this is kind of it.”
English (US) · 