Despite the fact he remains active, Washington has already become a benchmark. We tend to look for the new and novel to crown as the future marquee names. Though it is one that his counterparts of the next generation embrace. Many of these actors have also ridden the franchise wave that Washington doesn’t appear to be interested in engaging with. Jackson, Idris Elba, Don Cheadle and Jeffrey Wright.
His most prominent peers tend to fill supporting roles like Samuel L. Would it change our perception of him?Ĭontributing to our complacency may have also been a lack of leading roles for a Black actor of his age. Would that happen if he was more selective? What if his career reflected one of his great contemporaries, Daniel Day-Lewis? Washington made 18 movies in the ’90s alone while Day-Lewis has 20 credits in his entire career.
His ability to be remarkable became unremarkable. Maybe we came to expect he would be great in whatever he did. Perhaps the consistency and frequency made us dismiss him. Washington was always the X-factor that buoyed these efforts, elevating them beyond their mainstream contemporaries. Some of these projects could play ad-libs with the leading men of their day as the top-billed talent. They are the kind that are not made any longer and now exist as fond memories of a simpler time. To be clear, these are, on the whole, good movies. It’s this reliable adult-skewing box office success that seems to have obscured his brilliance. He makes three more movies with Antoine Fuqua, who directed him in Training Day, and four more with his C rimson Tide boss Tony Scott. He returns to collaborate with Johnathan Demme, Spike Lee and Carl Franklin. He lends his talents to directors from his past revisiting partnerships that have previously struck gold. It begins with Ricochet in 1991 but picks up steam in the mid-to-late 90s. Interspersed with Washington’s heavy-hitting dramas are a slew of mid-budget action thrillers. But it’s in the wake of that victory that his cultural presence begins to drift, as evidence by the lack of fanfare for his recent nominated work. The triumph officially solidified his status as one of Hollywood’s all-time greats. In Washington’s acceptance speech, he mentioned his 40-year pursuit of the honor. At the time, he was only the second Black actor to win the honor in the award ceremony’s 74-year history after Sidney Poitier. In 2002, he finally won the Oscar for Best Actor as a corrupt detective in Training Day. It capped off more than a decade of dominance for Washington. His second nomination came for his depiction of middleweight boxer Rubin Carter, who was wrongfully convicted of murder, in The Hurricane. His spellbinding performance as Malcolm X in the eponymous 1992 Spike Lee film led to a sensational run that included The Pelican Brief, Philadelphia and Crimson Tide. It’s one that might resonate the way his earlier work did and remind us why he is the true king of Hollywood.įrom 1988-2000, Washington was nominated for four Oscars, winning the Best Supporting nod for Glory in 1990. It’s a historically enormous role for any actor that Washington, with his bottomless capacity for excellence, finds a way to make his own and deliver one of his finest performances. This year, he stars in The Tragedy of Macbeth, which will saunter into theaters in December. He’s been crystalized as a pre-Obama portrait of Black excellence. Even with widespread industry recognition, his latter-day characters have been treated as icing on the cake rather than definitive entries in his sterling career. failed to provide a lasting impact on the zeitgeist, with neither cracking the top five of a week’s box office.
Despite Oscar nominations, Fences and Roman J. We’re living through one of, if not the, greatest acting careers in history but have lost interest in engaging with and celebrating it. But somewhere along the way, audiences became spoiled by his prolific resume. Now 66, Washington continues to extend his legacy into the autumn of his career. As any spirits expert knows, age is beneficial until it’s not. There’s comfort in the reliable luxury that half-consumed bottle provides, but we ultimately end up reaching for the other labels: the novelty flavors and less refined expressions. It elicits fond memories and superlative comments but ultimately collects dust. He’s the prestige bottle of single malt scotch we put on our top shelf.
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