Denzel Washington | Biography, Movies, Macbeth, Oscar, & Facts
Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last Updated: Jun 19, 2024 • Article
History
Table of Contents
Who is Denzel Washington?
Denzel Washington is an American actor known for his engaging and powerful performances. Throughout his career he has been regularly praised by critics, and his consistent success at the box office has helped to dispel the perception that African American actors cannot draw mainstream white audiences.
What was Denzel Washington’s first film?
Denzel Washington’s feature-film debut was the 1981 comedy Carbon Copy, in which he plays the illegitimate African American son of a white business executive played by George Segal.
Where did Denzel Washington grow up?
Denzel Washington was born in Mount Vernon, New York, in 1954 and grew up there until age 14, when he was sent to a boarding school by his parents. He later graduated from Fordham University, in 1977, where he studied journalism.
Recent News
June 18, 2024, 3:27 PM ET (The Hollywood Reporter)
Denzel Washington (born December 28, 1954, Mount Vernon, New York, U.S.) is an American actor celebrated for his engaging and powerful performances. Throughout his career he was regularly praised by critics, and his consistent success at the box office helped to dispel the perception that African American actors could not draw mainstream white audiences.
Denzel Washington
After graduating from Fordham University (B.A., 1977), Washington began to pursue acting as a career and joined the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. After several successful stage performances in California and New York, he made his screen debut in the comedy Carbon Copy (1981). He first began to receive national attention for his work on the television drama St. Elsewhere (1982–88). For the film Cry Freedom (1987), he portrayed South African activist Stephen Biko, and he received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor. Two years later he won the Oscar for best supporting actor for his performance as a freed slave fighting in the Union army in the American Civil War film Glory (1989).
Empty movie theater and blank screen (theatre, motion pictures, cinema).
Washington’s skill as an actor and his popular appeal as a leading man were firmly established in the 1990s. He gave memorable performances in the romantic comedy Mississippi Masala (1991), the Shakespearean comedy Much Ado About Nothing (1993), the courtroom drama Philadelphia (1993), the hard-boiled mystery Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), and the military thriller Crimson Tide (1995). The latter was the first of several popular movies he made with director Tony Scott. During this time he also frequently worked with director Spike Lee, starring in Mo’ Better Blues (1990), He Got Game (1998), and most significantly Malcolm X (1992). Portraying the civil rights activist Malcolm X, Washington gave a complex and powerful performance and earned an Academy Award nomination for best actor. He received a second best-actor nomination for his portrayal of boxer Rubin Carter in the film The Hurricane (1999).
Denzel Washington
Denzel Washington in Training Day (2001); directed by Antoine Fuqua.(more)
Denzel Washington and Christopher Plummer in Inside Man
Denzel Washington (left) and Christopher Plummer in Inside Man (2006).(more)
In Training Day (2001), Washington played a corrupt and violent police detective, the performance for which he became only the second African American actor (the first was Sidney Poitier) to win an Oscar for best actor. After starring in director Jonathan Demme’s 2004 update of the 1962 thriller The Manchurian Candidate, Washington reteamed with Lee for the crime drama Inside Man (2006). He later appeared as a drug kingpin opposite Russell Crowe’s determined narcotics officer in American Gangster (2007) and as a dispatcher caught in the middle of a subway train hijacking in Scott’s The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009).
In 2010 Washington starred in the postapocalyptic action drama The Book of Eli and collaborated again with Scott on the action thriller Unstoppable. He subsequently portrayed a rogue CIA agent in South Africa in the spy thriller Safe House (2012) before giving an Oscar-nominated performance in Flight (2012) as a heroic airplane pilot hiding a substance-abuse problem. The action comedy 2 Guns, in which Washington was cast as a covert drug-enforcement operative, followed in 2013. After playing Robert McCall, a mysterious vigilante, in the action thriller The Equalizer (2014), Washington appeared in The Magnificent Seven (2016), a remake of the 1960 classic western. In 2017 he starred in Roman J. Israel, Esq., portraying an idealistic Los Angeles lawyer who begins to question his principles. For his performance, Washington received his eighth Oscar nomination for acting. He then reprised his role as Robert McCall in The Equalizer 2 (2018). In the crime drama The Little Things (2021) he played a detective hunting a serial killer. Also in 2021 Washington starred with Frances McDormand in The Tragedy of Macbeth, Joel Coen’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s play. Washington received an Academy Award nomination for his portr
ayal of the titular character.
Leave a Reply