Since it’s Martin Luther King day today, it seems appropriate that we write an article relevant to Dr. King’s message. But of course with our own celebrity twist. Denzel Washington was on “The Early Show” on Monday, and he talked about how the civil rights struggle affected his own upbringing and that of his children. Washington did an incredible job portraying Malcolm X in Spike Lee’s 1992 biopic. Malcolm X fought for civil rights in a very different way than Martin Luther King. Washington has great perspective on the history and the struggle.

On The Early Show Monday, co-anchor Harry Smith asked Washington whether Dr. King was “a part of the conversation” in his household. “You know,” Washington responded, “My father was a minister. So there was this talk of this other guy, Malcolm X, that was not allowed to somehow be talked about, and of course there was Martin Luther King.

“In retrospect, I think what he and Malcolm X and John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy had in common is they were the first television stars, if you will, leaders. Television activists, I mean. Of course, I remember the March on Washington, famous speech and things like that. You know, you had this image, (and) now this person’s in your house.”

[From CBS News]

Washington also says his parents did their best to shield their kids from discrimination. He described family trips taken to his father’s home state of Virginia, when the family couldn’t stop at restaurants and other places due to the different social climate at the time. Yet his parents never told him why.

“You know what was interesting for my generation,” Washington remembered, “is that, because we were sort of protected, I remember taking trips down South - our father grew up in Virginia - and I remember us not being able to stop at places. I didn’t quite know why. It was like, we hit the Jersey Turnpike, he gassed up. You went all the way to Virginia. You hit the last Howard Johnson’s, and that was it, you know? Or they brought the food with us, you know? And I didn’t exactly know why.

[From CBS News]

Denzel goes on to note that his parents’ attempts to protect him had good and bad results. He really believed that the world would be a good place and people would be treated equally, and was surprised when that didn’t turn out to be true.

”…you thought, in your lifetime, ‘Oh, everything’s going to be perfect, like Martin Luther King said.’ And then you get out there in the real world, and it ain’t. I try to teach my children there are going to be obstacles. Someone may not like you just because they don’t like themselves. You know what I mean? But don’t you get bogged down, and don’t be a hater, you know? Don’t let hatred destroy you, you know? Overcome it. Move on. Educate them, if you will.”

[From CBS News]

I saw Denzel’s movie “The Great Debaters” recently, and it seems like he really brought that message to it. Denzel directed and starred in the film. The idea to not let hatred destroy you and to overcome it is an incredibly valuable message that applies not just today but to our lives as a whole, and the human condition. Today is a great day to take some time and reflect on Martin Luther King’s message, how far we’ve come, and how far we have to go.

Denzel Washington is known for his generous charity, some of which has become the stuff of legend. The Oscar winning actor stars in the upcoming film The Great Debaters, which is out this Christmas and focuses on the success of the debate team in the 1930s at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas. Denzel visited Wiley last week to screen the film, and gave the small predominantly African-American college $1 million to re-establish its debate team.

The gift was announced Tuesday by school officials.

Washington was in Marshall last week to screen The Great Debaters, the story of Wiley’s 1930s debate team. He stars as educator and poet Melvin Tolson, who led the all-black college’s elite debate squad.

During his appearance, the 52-year-old actor-director said he would like to see the team get going again.

Marshall is a city of about 24,000, located 140 miles east of Dallas. Wiley has about 900 students.

The Great Debaters opens Christmas Day. It has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award for best picture drama.

[AP Story found at AZCentral.com]

Urban Legend site Snopes.com notes that Washington has also given $1 million to the Children’s Fund of South Africa and $2.5 million to the Church of God. Washington is a devout Christian, according to Wikipedia. Washington, who turns 53 next week, has been married to his wife Pauletta since 1983. They have four children, John David, 23, a professional football player, Katia, 20, a student at Yale University, and twins Olivia and Malcolm, 15.

This week’s National Enquirer had another story of Washington’s kindness on a smaller scale. He made a young struggling actor’s day when he personally called an agent to ask him to represent him:

Denzel suddenly strode into swanky Saks Fifth Avenue [in Beverly Hills] for last-minute Christmas shopping. The superstar soon had a bright-eyed young salesman hopping to fill his orders, and the guy kept making great gift suggestions. Impressed, Denzel learned he’d just arrived in Hollywood from Virgina to follow his dream of becoming… an actor. He was struggling to make ends meet, of course, but told Denzel about a long shot Big Break: A powerful showbiz agent had hinted that he might sign him as a client - but it was a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” situation.

Speaking with quiet authority… Denzel said “Get that agent on the phone now!” When the awed kid made the connection, Our Hero took the phone and said “Hi, this is Denzel washington. I’m with this nice young man who says he’s waiting to hear whether you plan to represent him or not. I want to know if you’re planning to sign him… yes or no. Otherwise, I’ll call my agent - right now - and we’ll find him someone else.”

The stunned agent replied: “Er, yes… of course! I’ll represent him.”

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, Mike Walker’s column, December 24, 2007]

The article goes on to report that Denzel wrote down his assistant’s number for the young man and told him to call him if he needed any more help.

I love that story! Denzel Washington seems like such a great guy and it’s nice to know he’s still having a lot of success with his career.

Here’s the trailer for the film, thanks to the Evil Beet for linking it. It is directed by Denzel, produced by Oprah and also stars Oscar winner Forest Wittaker. It looks incredible, but it also might get weighed down with too much emotion and predictable tugging at heartstrings, it could go either way judging by this trailer.

Here’s Denzel and his wife Pauletta along with Oprah, Samuel L Jackson and his wife LaTanya Richardson at The Great Debaters premiere on 12/11/07, thanks to PRPhotos.

Russell Crowe, Mel Gibson, and Jeremy Piven were among the Hollywood luminaries with anger management issues at American Gangster industry screening in Hollywood last night. Denzel Washington stars in American Gangster as Frank Lucas, a hugely successful drug lord in early 70s Harlem. Crowe plays a detective out to catch Lucas, and the film draws moral parallels between the two characters, with neither shown as morally superior or more deserving.

Comingsoon.net has an interview with Crowe and Washington about the upcoming film and their respective roles:

ComingSoon.net: Can you talk about the delicate balance between good versus evil we see between your two characters?
Washington: (laughs for a long time) Now, who was the good guy and who was the evil guy? That’s the delicate balance.

CS: One could say that the cord runs parallel to both.
Washington: Right, and there you have it. (laughter) The cord runs parallel to both. Jump in there, Russell. (laughs)
Crowe: Well, I think that’s one of the fascinating things about the two characters and about the story itself. That none of that’s clear. There’s not a clear singular morality, and when you get the opportunity to play that sort of thing, which is nothing more than reality and the sort of humanity as it exists, it’s just a bit of fun. You know, Richie’s an honest guy and all that sort of thing, but as his wife calls him out in the court: you’re only honest in one area — you try and buy yourself favorites for all the sh*t that you do. I just think that’s an honest appraisal of who he was at that time, but it also leaks into that area of discussing why people go bad in the first place, or what the process of Frank Lucas was to become a drug dealer. If Frank Lucas had been befriended by somebody else and educated in a different area, he might get in a situation where a university’s named after him. He’s a very smart guy and he uses things that he’s learned to the best of his ability to change his life and change the life of his family at that time. But it just happened to be that Bumpy Johnson was his teacher. We were joking yesterday about doing his sort of course work on the street, PhD in criminality under Bumpy Johnson.
Washington: Yeah. (laughter)

[From ComingSoon.net]

Here’s the trailer. The film looks like it kicks ass, and I’m in the states now and think that I’ll see it this weekend:

The real Frank Lucas, on whom Denzel Washington’s character is based, is now out of prison after two separate stints, the most recent ending in 1991. He is 77 and is confined to a wheelchair. A documentary will air about Lucas on BET on October 31st.

American Gangster is getting largely positive reviews, and is out in US theaters on Friday.

Thanks to PRPhotos for these premiere pictures, which also include Oliver Martinez. The lights there must have been bright, because everyone looks like they’re squinting. There are also stills from the film, thanks to allmoviephoto.

Russell Crowe sure has a mouth on him – but at least semi-interesting things pop out of it once in a while. Crowe recently gave an interview to Entertainment Weekly in which he was more than willing to chat about several of his famous co-stars – including some pretty personal stuff. He revealed that Leonardo DiCaprio was a virgin when Crowe first met the then-17-year-old. And apparently DiCaprio wouldn’t shut up about it.

“You know, I worked with Leonardo [DiCaprio] when he was 17,” Crowe recalls. “He was a virgin and he’d talk about that constantly.”

Of course, Leo has made up for lost time - what with his conquests of supermodels Gisele Bundchen and Bar Rafaeli, among others. So Crowe is looking forward to debriefing the lothario on their upcoming “Body of Lies.”

“I’m hoping … he can fill [me] in on what’s happened in between, maybe show some photos,” Crowe laughs in Entertainment Weekly. “I’m sure life’s different now.”

[From the New York Daily News]

Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I don’t consider being a virgin at 17 to be anything bad. But then again I collect vintage candles and yell at my mom for listening to the television too loudly, so there you go. Crowe also talks about spitting on Denzel Washington. Because that’s always a good career move.

The Oscar winner, who talks to EW with Denzel Washington, remembers meeting his “American Gangster” co-star 12 years ago, on the set of “Virtuosity.”

“We had to do a scene where there’s a piece of cyclone wire fencing between us,” says Crowe. “I had to be really rabid and weird, and … a bit of spit comes out of my mouth … and it weaves itself neatly through the fencing and lands right on Denzel’s lip. … And I’m going, Oh man … I’m doing my audition, and I spit on Denzel Washington. I might as well just go home and hang myself right now. … He just kept on doing the scene, and at the end, they said ‘cut,’ and he’s looking at me and the spit’s still sitting there and he goes, ‘I love the taste of warm saliva in the morning.’?”

[From the New York Daily News]

That Denzel Washington is a good guy. If Russell Crowe spit within ten feet of me I’d launch a pack of rabid, wild dogs on him. You know he’s been around the block with some unsavory women. It’s a wonder Denzel didn’t get Chlamydia from the guy. Yes I know you can’t transmit it through spit. But I’m pretty sure Russell Crowe has so many other STDs that there’s nowhere left for the Chlamydia to go, and they get forced upwards. I’m joking, I’m joking. Mostly.

Picture note by Jaybird: Here’s Russell Crowe with wife Danielle Spencer at the American Gangster New York Premiere on October 19th. Images thanks to PR Photos.

“Inside Man” starring Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster and Clive Owen premiered last night in NY. The film is an action movie featuring Washington as cop negotiating with a bank robber who has taken hostages:

Initial reviews are positive despite the familiar plot, and with such a talented cast it should be a great film.

Foster, Owen, and Washington attended last night’s premiere. Other celebrities pictured include featured stars Willem Dafoe, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Darryl Mitchell, and Kim Director. Well known names in attendance were Wesley Snipes, Jill Hennessy, Mariska Hargitay, Lynn Whitfield, the Reverend Al Sharpton, and Russell Simmons - without his annoying wife.

12 more pictures after the jump.

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