Denzel Washington Had a Boundary Up Between Him and His ‘American Gangster’ Role: ‘I Ain’t No Killer’

Denzel Washington has led many lives. Not just through his performances in films like “Glory,” “Malcolm X,” and more recently “Gladiator II,” but also in his personal life and the various phases he’s gone through in becoming the man he is today. In a recent piece for Esquire, Washington spoke in his own words on the path he’s walked and how he’s infused it into the characters he played over the years, but never let it become part of him.

“Those characters I played in ‘Training Day,’ in ‘American Gangster’ — it might look like they were close to me, and I could tell you they were, but I wasn’t no gangster,” said Washington. “I ran with them real gangsters down there, but I was not them. So let me not tell that lie to you. I had one foot in the streets, but I ain’t no killer.”

While Washington is known for disappearing into his roles, it’s hard for him to draw too deep a connection. At the same time, he recognizes how pieces of his real self can bleed into whatever character’s he’s trying to embrace.

“I can’t think of a single role where I would say, ‘Man, that’s me.’ Entirely me? No, no,” Washington said. “First of all, they’re lines that you read and you learn, and that’s how that person talks. Sure, there has to be pieces of what you’ve done in who you are, and hopefully there’s pieces of who you are in what you’ve done. My mother used to say, ‘Boy, you got to smile more, because if you don’t, people think you’re angry.’ So I had something in me.”

In the piece, Washington reflected on his youth in Mount Vernon, New York, as well as his issues with drinking that started around this time. He admitted that while he had tried hard drugs, he never formed an addiction that derailed his life or career in the way many of his friends did.

“I never got strung out on heroin. Never got strung out on coke. Never got strung out on hard drugs,” Washington told Esquire. “I shot dope just like they shot dope, but I never got strung out.”