Denzel Washington in Manchurian Candidate, The (2004)
Two-time Academy Award®-winning actor DENZEL WASHINGTON portrays Army Major Ben Marco, a talented career soldier determined to discover the truth about his experiences in Kuwait during the Gulf War.
In such roles as the South African freedom fighter Steven Biko in “Cry Freedom,” Shakespeare’s tragic historical figure “Richard III,” the womanizing trumpet player Bleek Gilliam in Spike Lee’s “Mo’ Better Blues,” and his Academy Award®-winning portrayal of an embittered runaway slave in Ed Zwick’s “Glory,” Denzel Washington has amazed and entertained us with a rich and colorful array of characters distinctly his own.
Washington was awarded the Oscar® for Best Actor for one of his most critically acclaimed performances to date, as a grizzled LAPD veteran in “Training Day,” directed by Antoine Fuqua. In 2002, Denzel Washington made his feature film directorial debut with “Antwone Fisher.” Based on a true-life story, the film follows Fisher, a troubled young sailor played by newcomer Derek Luke, as he comes to terms with his past. The film won critical praise, and was awarded the Stanley Kramer Award from the Producers Guild of America, as well as winning an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Motion Picture and Outstanding Supporting Actor for Washington.
Most recently, Washington starred in Tony Scott’s “Man on Fire,” in which he portrayed a former Marine who swears vengeance on people who have harmed the family he’s sworn to protect. In 2003, he starred in Carl Franklin’s “Out of Time,” in which he played a Florida police chief who must solve a double homicide before he falls under suspicion for the murders himself. He was also seen in “John Q,” a story about a down-on-his-luck father whose son is in need of a heart transplant, which garnered Washington a NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture.
In September of 2000, he starred in Jerry Bruckheimer’s box-office sensation ($115 million domestic gross) “Remember the Titans,” a fact-based film about the 1971 integration of a high school football team. In 1999, he starred in “The Hurricane,” for director Norman Jewison, and received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and an Academy Award® nomination (his fourth) for his portrayal of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, the world middleweight champion boxer who was wrongfully imprisoned twice for murder.
In November of 1999, he starred in “The Bone Collector,” the adaptation of Jeffery Deaver’s novel about the search for a serial killer, co-starring Angelina Jolie and directed by Phillip Noyce. In 1998, he starred in the crime thriller “Fallen,” for director Greg Hoblit, and in Spike Lee’s “He Got Game.” He also re-teamed with “Glory” director Ed Zwick for the terrorist thriller “The Siege,” co-starring Annette Bening and Bruce Willis.
In 1996, Washington starred in the critically acclaimed military drama “Courage Under Fire,” for director Ed Zwick, and also starred opposite Whitney Houston in Penny Marshall’s romantic comedy “The Preacher’s Wife.” In 1995, he starred opposite Gene Hackman in Tony Scott’s underwater action adventure “Crimson Tide”; as an ex-cop released from prison to track down a criminal in the futuristic thriller “Virtuosity”; and as World War II veteran Easy Rawlins in the 1940s romantic thriller “Devil in a Blue Dress” (which Washington’s Mundy Lane Entertainment produced with Jonathan Demme’s Clinica Estetico).
Washington also starred in the title role of the complex and controversial Black activist in director Spike Lee’s biographical epic, “Malcolm X,” for which the actor received, among many other accolades, an Academy Award® nomination for Best Actor.
A native of Mt. Vernon, New York, Washington studied acting under Robinson Stone at Fordham University and later attended San Francisco’s prestigious American Conservatory Theater.
Washington’s professional New York theater career began with Joseph Papp’s Shakespeare in the Park and was quickly followed by numerous off-Broadway productions, including “A Soldier’s Play,” for which he won an Obie Award. Washington’s stage appearances also include the Broadway production of “Checkmates” and the Shakespeare in the Park production of “Richard III.”
Washington first came to the attention of American audiences when he was cast as Dr. Phillip Chandler in NBC’s long-running, hit television series “St. Elsewhere.” In 1984, he re-created his role from “A Soldier’s Play” for Norman Jewison’s film version, “A Soldier’s Story,” and soon went on to star in Sidney Lumet’s “Power” and Richard Attenborough’s “Cry Freedom,” for which he received his first Oscar® nomination. Washington also starred in the action adventure film “Ricochet,” in Mira Nair’s bittersweet comedy “Mississippi Masala,” as well as in “For Queen and Country,” “The Mighty Quinn,” “Heart Condition” and Spike Lee’s “Mo’ Better Blues.”
Additional film credits include Kenneth Branagh’s film adaptation of “Much Ado About Nothing,” Jonathan Demme’s controversial “Philadelphia,” with Tom Hanks, and “The Pelican Brief,” based on the John Grisham novel.
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