Academy Award winning actor Denzel Washington was the subject of a recent New York Times profile, which featured a wide ranging conversation about his life, faith, and portrayal of Macbeth in the upcoming film “The Tragedy of Macbeth.”
Washington, who is well known for being vocal about his Christian faith, shared with Maureen Dowd that he made a promise to his 97 year-old mother that he’d “attempt to honor her and God by living the rest of my days in a way that would make her proud. So that’s what I’m trying to do.” Washington’s mother, Lennis, passed away in June.
“What I do, what I make, what I made—all of that—is that going to help me on the last day of my life? It’s about, Who have you lifted up? Who have we made better,” Washington went on to say. “This is spiritual warfare. So, I’m not looking at it from an earthly perspective. If you don’t have a spiritual anchor you’ll be easily blown by the wind and you’ll be led to depression.”
Washington, whose father was a Pentecostal preacher, then asked Dowd, “Have you read the Bible? Start with the New Testament, because the Old Testament is harder. You get caught up in the who-begot-who-begot-who thing.”
Washington also encouraged Dowd to read The Daily Word, an app that offers daily inspirational messages.
“You have to fill up that bucket every morning,” Washington told Dowd. “It’s rough out there. You leave the house in the morning. Here they come, chipping away. By the end of the day, you’ve got to refill that bucket. We know right from wrong.”
RELATED: Denzel Washington: Prayer and the Holy Spirit Have Protected Me
Washington continued to speak about his faith by discussing matters of eternity with Dowd.
“The enemy is the inner me,” Washington said. “The Bible says in the last days—I don’t know if it’s the last days, it’s not my place to know—but it says we’ll be lovers of ourselves. The No. 1 photograph today is a selfie, ‘Oh, me at the protest.’ ‘Me with the fire.’ ‘Follow me.’ ‘Listen to me.’”
“We’re living in a time where people are willing to do anything to get followed. What is the long or short-term effect of too much information? It’s going fast and it can be manipulated obviously in a myriad of ways. And people are led like sheep to slaughter,” Washington continued.
Washington said that in heaven, “there are going to be two lines, the long line and the short line, and I’m interested in being in the short line.”
