Denzel Washington

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What did Denzel Washington tell Will Smith after the slap heard round the world?

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What did Denzel Washington tell Will Smith after the slap heard round the world?

Moments after the Academy Awards slap heard 'round the world, Will Smith huddled during a commercial break with Denzel Washington, another of the Best Actor nominees.

No one could hear what Smith discussed with the man who is both an A-list player and the rare Hollywood superstar who has -- after years in hot press spotlights -- emerged as a mentor on issues of faith and family.

But Smith appeared to have Washington on his mind during his emotional remarks after winning the Oscar for his work in "King Richard." Smith apologized to his peers for slap-punching Chris Rock after his jest about his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith's shaved head. The comic apparently didn't know she was suffering hair loss with Alopecia.

“In this moment, I am overwhelmed by what God is calling on me to do and be in this world. … I'm being called on in my life to love people and to protect people," said Smith, tears on his face. "I know that to do what we do, you gotta be able to take abuse, you gotta be able to have people talk crazy about you. In this business, you gotta be able to have people disrespecting you. And you gotta smile and pretend that that's OK."

When Washington offered quiet words of encouragement from offstage, Smith thanked him and added: "Denzel said a few minutes ago: At your highest moment, be careful -- that's when the devil comes for you."

This was not ordinary Oscars God-talk.

This drama triggered waves of social-media angst, with critics and millions of viewers debating who to blame for this crisis during an otherwise meandering Academy Awards show shaped by politics, pandemics, gender, race and low ratings.

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Icons, heroes and even one superhero: Chadwick Boseman was an unusual film star

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Icons, heroes and even one superhero: Chadwick Boseman was an unusual film star

Early in the coronavirus crisis, and this summer's wave of chaos in American streets, Rachel Bulman began paying close attention to the faces in news reports.

She also found herself thinking about a hero -- the Black Panther.

Born in the Philippines before being adopted, the Catholic writer has -- as a daughter, wife and mother -- lived her life in White America. As a child, she didn't look like her family. Now, her children are growing up "knowing that they just don't look like everyone else. … Our family has its own story," she said.

Bulman responded by hanging images of saints from Africa, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere in their home. There was St. Josephine Bakhita from the Sudan and an icon of St. Augustine with darker skin, since his mother was from North Africa's Berber tribe. There was St. Juan Diego of Mexico, who encountered Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Sister Thea Bowman of Mississippi, the granddaughter of slaves, whose cause for sainthood has been endorsed by America's bishops.

"I wanted my children to see all kinds of saints and heroes, including some with faces kind of like their own," she said.

Bulman had also become interested in the Marvel Comics universe and the symbolic role of King T'Challa -- the Black Panther -- for millions of Black Americans, especially children. She was stunned when actor Chadwick Boseman died at age 43 after a long, private fight with colon cancer. He endured years of chemotherapy and multiple surgeries while filming "The Black Panther" and related Avenger movies.

Searching through press reports, Bulman noted colleagues referring to Boseman as a "man of faith," a "beautiful soul" and someone with a "spiritual aura" about his work with others -- including children with cancer.

At a memorial rite for Boseman, his former pastor at Welfare Baptist Church in Anderson, S.C., said the actor remained the same person he knew as a young believer.

“He's still Chad," said the Rev. Samuel Neely. "He did a lot of positive things. … With him singing in the choir, with him working the youth group, he always was doing something, always helping out, always serving. That was his personality."

Digging deeper, Bulman said she "cried all the way through" a video of Boseman's 2018 commencement address at Howard University, his alma mater.

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Short, candid sermon about faith and life -- from Denzel Washington

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As often happens on a campus with strong religious ties, the commencement speaker began with a personal story about life and faith -- with a hint of the miraculous.

The speaker flashed back to a specific date -- March 27, 1975 -- when he had flunked out of college and was poised to enlist in the U.S. Army. Then, during a visit to his mother's beauty parlor, a woman he didn't know gazed into his eyes and demanded that someone bring her a pen. 

"I have a prophecy," she said, writing out key details. She told him: "Boy, you are going to travel the world and speak to millions of people."

That's the kind of thing Pentecostal Christians say to future preachers all the time. But in this case she was talking to Denzel Washington, a future Hollywood superstar. The key, he recently told 218 graduates at Dillard University in New Orleans, is that her words rang true.

"I have traveled the world and I have spoken to millions of people. But that's not the most important thing," said the 60-year-old Washington, who received an honorary doctorate in the ceremony. "What she told me that day has stayed with me ever since.

"I've been protected. I've been directed. I've been corrected. I've kept God in my life and He's kept me humble. I didn't always stick with him, but he's always stuck with me. … If you think you want to do what you think I've done, then do what I've done. Stick with God."

The Book of Denzel

The first time Denzel Washington read the "Training Day" script, he had an intensely personal reaction to his character -- the charismatic, but fatally corrupt, detective Alonzo Harris. "I try to bend even the worst of my roles, like 'Training Day,' " said Washington, the day after a press screening of "The Book of Eli" in Los Angeles. "The first thing I wrote on my script was 'the wages of sin is death.' "

After that biblical pronouncement, the superstar pleaded for a crucial change in this role, for which he won the Oscar as Best Actor. In the original script, viewers learned about his character's death in a television newscast. Washington insisted that this urban wolf be yanked out of his car and forced to "crawl like a snake" before being riddled with bullets, while people in the neighborhood turned their backs on him.

"I said, 'No, no. ... In order for me to justify him living in the worst way, he has to die in the worst way,' " explained Washington.

For Washington, this "bending" process is part of his ongoing efforts to make sense of his Christian faith in the midst of a career as one of Hollywood's most powerful players in front of, and behind, the camera. The goal isn't to sneak faith into mainstream films, but to pinpoint themes about sin, redemption, justice, dignity and compassion that mesh with what he believes to be true as the son of Pentecostal pastor and an active member of the giant West Angeles Church of God in Christ.

That's what he was doing while playing Malcolm X, emphasizing that his sermons built on racial hatred were evolving into messages rooted in equality. In the violent "Man on Fire," Washington played a bodyguard who decides to sacrifice his own life to save a young girl from kidnappers. This "bending" process is easier in some movies than others.

In the R-rated "Book of Eli" -- directors Albert and Allen Hughes call it a "post-nuclear western" -- the actor plays a warrior who marches through a devastated American landscape while, literally, on a mission from God. He is carrying the last surviving copy of the King James Bible, along with his machete and a few other weapons that he uses with righteous fervor. Call it "Mad Moses" in "The Prayer Warrior."

"Here's a man who, like Saul, or Paul, gets knocked off his horse and has this epiphany, this moment," said Washington.

In a vision, the voice of God tells Eli, "Take this book west," and promises to protect him until he can deliver it into safekeeping. There is one big difference between Eli's story and the biblical account of St. Paul's conversion, the actor admitted, with a laugh. "I don't know if it said anywhere in there, 'And kill everybody on your way.' "

While early drafts of the script contained even more religious material, the film does show Eli reading the Bible and praying every day. In a pivotal scene, he teaches a young woman how to pray, while trying to protect her from a strongman who wants to seize the Bible to use it as "a weapon aimed at the hearts of the weak and the desperate."

Eli's basic message is simple: "Do more for others than you do for yourself." The movie ends with a prayer that includes a famous quotation from St. Paul: "I fought the good fight. I finished the race. I kept the faith."

Washington said these are the kinds of messages that linger after the Bible studies that he strives to fit into each day. He has worked his way through the Bible three times, spurred on by the example of Pauletta, his wife of 26 years.

While reading the Book of Proverbs recently, he began looking around his house, marveling over "all this stuff." This led to a sobering question: "What do you want, Denzel?" He focused on "wisdom," which led to the word "understanding."

"I said, 'Hey, there's something to work on. How about wisdom and understanding? How about that? I started praying, I said, 'God, give me a dose of that,' " said Washington. "I mean, I can't get … anymore successful, you know, but I can get better. I can learn to love more. I can learn to be more understanding. I can gain more wisdom.

"So that's where I'm at."