Credit: Sony Pictures
The conversation at the press conference for Denzel Washington’s new movie Equalizer took an interesting turn when the veteran actor recalled his run-in with the n-word while in Boston more than 30 years ago.
Meanwhile, fans of the 59-year-old actor took to Twitter to push for Washington to become the first Black James Bond.
Racism wasn’t the topic of discussion at the Toronto Film Festival on Sunday, but a question about filming Equalizer in Boston caused the conversation to take an unexpected turn.
Washington was joined by co-stars Chloe Grace Moretz and Marton Csokas as well as the film’s director, Antoine Fuqua.
While everyone discussed the challenges of shooting on the first day, it was Washington who opened up about a personal experience with racism when he was in Boston years ago.
Washington recalled the time he went to Boston with his wife, Pauletta, so he could see her perform in a play.
When they arrived at their hotel, however, people assumed Washington was a pimp and that his wife was actually his prostitute.
According to the Flight actor, a fight broke out and security had to be called.
“I didn’t know how to fight,” Washington said. “But I knew how to win.”
Unfortunately, the trouble didn’t stop there.
One night, he decided to walk to his wife’s show only to be verbally attacked by a stranger.
“ ‘Hey n****r, n****r, n****r, n****r, hey boy.’ I was like, ‘Damn,’ ” Washington recalled. “That was the taste I had about Boston.”
During Sunday’s conference, he also discussed rough experiences with directors and how he has never been in a movie where he wasn’t nervous during the first day of shooting.
Throughout the press conference, Washington displayed an intriguing sense of calm as he discussed painful memories of racism. That cool, collected persona could possibly earn him a role as the first Black James Bond.
Source: Twitter
At least, his fans hope it will.
The Oscar-winning actor took part in Reddit’s “Ask Me Anything” chat and was posed with an interesting question.
“Would you be interested in being the next James Bond,” one user asked.
Washington not only admitted that he would be interested in the part, but he showed quite a bit of excitement over the idea of having such a role.
“The next James Bond,” Washington asked. “Yes I would! Who’s doing James Bond now – Daniel Craig!”
He then put the powers of social media to the test.
“Everybody should tweet Denzel is James Bond,” he added. “We start the Denzel is Bond campaign today!”
Of course, it’s impossible to tell whether the actor was joking around or not, but his fans certainly took the message to heart.
#DenzelIsJamesBond did manage to start circulating on Twitter, although it certainly did not become the giant Web phenomenon that would really encourage filmmakers to give the fans what they wanted.
