Denzel on Pacman: Very Humble!

When Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao meets Joshua Clottey in a welterweight bout at the newly-built Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, today (US Time, Saturday night, March 13), one of the Hollywood stars who would be rooting for him from a ringside seat might be Denzel Washington, a Pacman fan.

In May last year, Washington, 55, watched the Pacman-(Ricky) Hatton Junior Welterweight title fight at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas and personally congratulated Pacman when he defeated Hatton.

I realized how much of a Pacman fan Washington is when I interviewed him last January at a function room in Four Seasons (Beverly Hills) for his latest starrer, The Book of Eli (distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International, opening nationwide on Wednesday, March 17).

After the TV interview when I asked Washington to invite his fans back in the Philippines to watch his movie, he forgot to do so and instead said, “Oh, the Philippines! You know, I had the chance to meet Manny Pacquiao after one of his fights.”

It’s understandable why Washington loves boxing. In one of his movies, Hurricane, he plays Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, the 1960s world middleweight champion boxer wrongfully imprisoned for murder, for which he received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and an Oscar nomination for that.

Curious, I asked Washington how he found Pacman. “Very humble,” he smiled.

As does Pacman before a fight, Washington prepared for Hurricane with a passion. According to a story in People magazine which once named him Sexiest Man Alive and included him in the “sexiest” and “50 Most Beautiful People” lists in succeeding years, Washington endured 16 months of up to four-hour-a-day workouts so he could convincingly portray Hurricane. The result was amazing, prompting the movie’s director, Norman Jewison, to comment, “When he takes off that boxing robe in the beginning of the film, I could hear the gasp from the audience,” adding, “I told him he was never again going to look this good.”

The Book of Eli junket marked my second close encounter in more than a decade, the first having been in Hong Kong for his movie Fallen. Then and now, Washington was the perfect gentleman, fine-mannered, direct-to-the-point, no-nonsense and very dignified. I remember a magazine article that ranked him as the actor with the perfect face; meaning, one half of his face is exactly the same as the other half, and not everybody is like that (one half is always slightly different than the other...look at yourself in the mirror covering one half first and then the other, and you’ll see what it means). Washington did look “perfect.”

Describing Washington further, Jewison said, “There’s something very noble about his appearance, like he’s stamped on a Roman coin.”

In The Book of Eli, Washington plays “a warrior not by choice but by necessity” in a story set in the not-so-distant future some 30 years after the final war about the wasteland that was once America. Cities are empty, highways are broken, earth is seared, scenes of destruction all over. Into this chaos enters Washington’s character Eli armed with “the book” that will hopefully restore peace and order in the wasteland.

Directed by Hughes Brothers Allen and Albert (Menace II Society, Dead Presidents, etc.), The Book of Eli also stars Gary Oldman as the self-appointed despot of a makeshift town of thieves and gunmen into which Eli wanders from nowhere.

Time film critic Richard Corliss capsulizes the essence of Washington thus: “And always in Denzel Washington’s screen demeanor is the sense of power withheld, of anger internalized. He doesn’t shout or strut, doesn’t need to. Why raise your voice when a good stare from that handsome, solemn face will quiet adversary? That is the mark of cinema charisma: an assurance that articulates itself through sheer presence. A hero has it; so does a god.”

Here are excerpts from our Conversation:

What made you decide to do this movie and co-produce it?

“I just want to do something I haven’t done before — a story that raises questions about spirituality. It’s an interesting journey. Eli is a man on a mission of great importance that he’s been pursuing for a long time. When we meet him, he’s nearing the end of it but his greatest tests are still to come.”

Are you like Eli, your character, who has such faith in The Bible? Do you have a copy of The Bible; how often do you read it?

“Every day. I’ve read The Bible from cover to cover three or four times.”

Obviously, you believe in God, in a Higher Being.

“Absolutely!”

What’s your religion?

“I don’t use the word religion. I think religion is a man-made word. Religion is divisive.”

The movie depicts the destruction of America. Do you think that kind of catastrophe will happen not only to America but the whole world in our lifetime? It’s scary!

“I hope not. I mean, we’ve been close to that. Right now, it seems that a million ant bites seem to be going on. There’s always a grave threat starting during the Cold War. Obviously, there’s always a possibility.”

What roles do you prefer and what roles would you not play?

“My favorite role is the next one. To me, what counts is the adventure that goes with the role, the process. I don’t look back; I look forward.”

You’d rather be considered an actor, not a star?

“I’m an actor. Superstar and sex symbol are mere titles, blah-blah-blah. Those things belong to the people, the public. That’s what they call you. But those titles have nothing to do with what you are and what you do, and what I do as an actor is what matters to me.”

You were once chosen by People magazine as the Sexiest Man Alive. How did you feel about that “title”?

(Deadpan) “I was psychologically-damaged because of that. If you are the ‘Sexiest Man Alive,’ people will dare you to show them that you are one. You are the sexiest man alive for 365 days and after that, what? You become the ugliest man alive. It was cute but it didn’t affect me at all.”

Before becoming an actor, what did you want to be?

“I wanted to be a journalist. I like to think that I am a journalist. But I would have been an investigative journalist. I enjoy doing research and finding out what makes a certain person tick. I don’t want to be the kind of journalist who simply reports things in the papers; I want to go deeper into the issues.”

Okay, please describe yourself.

“I’m just a regular guy.”

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