Denzel Washington is a prime example of you don’t have to sell your soul to achieve success. In a recent interview, the highly celebrated and Oscar winning actor discussed turning down a role which he referred to as “The Ni$$a They Couldn’t Kill.”
Speaking about the audition in 1986, Denzel stated, that they wanted him to play a slave that raped a white woman and just wouldn’t die. Not thinking it was funny though the Jewish Hollywood executives thought it was, Denzel explained,
“They tried to electrocute him, but it didn’t work … and then they tried to hang him, and then they tried to do all this stuff…I had a lot of ‘Training Day‘ in me and there was some Jewish people in the audition … and they said it was funny – they hang him… and I said, ‘Yeah, it’s like you bring some Jewish people into a room and they think it’s a shower and it’s gas!’, and they said ‘You’re right!’ and I said, ‘Right, that ain’t funny. So, to me it wasn’t funny about putting a rope around my MF-ing neck, either!’”
“I could just see the poster, with me with a rope around my neck.”
Denzel Washington even asked trailblazing actor Sidney Poitier for advice before turning down the role which paid $600-thousand. Peep Denzel as he keeps it real now.
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