Is Denzel Washington hinting at retirement from filmmaking?
Speaking to Empire magazine about starring in Ridley Scott’s next film, Gladiator II, the 69-year-old Oscar-winning actor and director said there were “very few” films that interested him.
“There are so few films left that I’m interested in making, so I have to take inspiration from filmmakers, and Ridley was a huge inspiration to me,” Washington told the magazine.
Scott, 86, added that he and Washington “had a great time early on” while filming 2007’s American Gangster. The British writer-director is “excited about life and his next movie. He’s an inspiration,” Washington added. “And I think that’s how we all want to feel at 86.”
Washington stars in Gladiator II alongside Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal and Connie Nielsen, playing the role of wealthy arms dealer Macrinus. “I want to be emperor, and I’ll do anything to get it,” Washington told Empire magazine. The film is the long-awaited sequel to Scott’s 2000 Oscar-winning Gladiator, starring Russell Crowe.
As for how many “leftover movies” Washington will draw inspiration from, the actor hasn’t publicly spoken about retirement. Besides Gladiator 2, his upcoming films include crime thriller The High and Low and an untitled project in which he’ll reteam with Training Day and The Equalizer director Antoine Fuqua. In spring 2025, he’ll return to Broadway for the sixth time, starring opposite Jake Gyllenhaal in William Shakespeare’s Othello.
As of the 2021 release of The Tragedy of Macbeth, Washington had been nominated for an Oscar 10 times, winning two times, for 1989’s Glory and 2001’s Training Day. He has directed four feature films, and has also produced dozens of others, including the August Wilson adaptation Fences, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and the upcoming The Piano, starring his son John David Washington and directed by his other son, Malcolm Washington.
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Denzel Washington in “Gladiator 2.”
Paramount Pictures
Scott told Vanity Fair in July that Washington’s Gladiator II character is “pretty cruel” to those fighting for their lives in Rome’s Colosseum.
Speaking to People magazine on the “Alien: Romulus” red carpet on August 12, he said the sequel is “every bit as good as the first one,” adding, “I’m not saying it’s better. It’s just as good.”
Paramount Pictures’ Gladiator II will be in theaters on November 22nd.