On a quiet Sunday, here’s a fun one. Denzel Washington is telling The Times that he spent a lot of the ‘90s making movies solely for the paycheck.
After Malcolm X I made some real clunkers. Look them up — I won’t say their names…They are all in the 1990s. But I was earning. I had responsibilities.
So, after “Malcolm X,” which is post-1992 … Denzel doesn’t mention any particular titles, but he does ask us to look them up — don’t mind if I do.
One look at his filmography, and it’s clear to me that the paycheck gigs might have been “The Pelican Brief,” “Virtuosity, “Fallen,” “The Bone Collector,” “The Preacher’s Wife,” and “The Siege.”
It wasn’t all bad. In the middle of all those clunkers, Denzel still managed to star in a few well-reviewed films, including “Philadelphia,” “Devil in A Blue Dress,” “Crimson Tide” and “He Got Game.”
We all know Denzel takes his craft seriously, and I just can’t blame him for doing “paycheck” movies. He evens tells The Times that it’s just part of the business. The reciprocal, unsaid deal that gets made between talent and studio.
In life, 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. 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.
While we’re at it, what’s the greatest performance Denzel has graced us with that isn’t called “Malcolm X”? I’ll give you some of the more obvious contenders: “American Gangster,” “Glory,” “Training Day,” “The Hurricane,” “Flight.” His most underrated work might be found in 2017’s “Roman J. Israel.”