A Quote by Denzel Washington

It's simple: You get a part. You play a part. You play it well. You do your work and you go home. And what is wonderful about movies is that once they're done, they belong to the people. Once you make it, it's what they see. That's where my head is at.
I did The Seagull, the Chekhov play, on Broadway, a couple of years ago, and I had done it in London, and I became completely obsessed with the character, Nina, that I played in that. She's an actress. I couldn't find a play after that, that I wanted to do, because I couldn't think of doing anything else. Every part is a disappointment, once you've done that part.
When people get in your face and say, 'This will pass,' you think, Are they crazy? I'm never gonna feel any better than I feel right this minute and nothing's ever gonna make sense again... You see a lot of people play this blame game. Blame, blame, blame. You know? And it's a really easy thing to do, and I'm certainly guilty of it. [You have to] look at yourself and go, 'What part of this do I need to own? Which part of this is my responsibility?' And that's the painful work that you have to go through to hopefully get some real life knowledge out of it.
I think directing is part play, part work, not just all work, because I think you always have to play. I think that's ultimately why I got into making movies, is because I love to play.
Money is a sort of instinct. It's a sort of property of nature in a person to make money. It's nothing you do. It's no trick you play. It's a sort of permanent accident of your own nature; once you start, you make money, and you go on. . . But you've got to begin. . . You've got to get in. You can do nothing if you are kept outside. You've got to beat your way in. Once you've done that, you can't help it!
I think if you do something effectively whether you're the lover or the comic or the action guy or the villain like I play; movies are very expensive to make. Chances are you'll get asked to play that part again.
I think a director can make a play happen before your eyes so that you are part of it and it is part of you. If you can get it right, there's no mystery. It's not about mystery. It's not even mysterious. It's about our lives.
The only thing that I always do - is once I've taken on a job, even just to do one scene in a movie, I ask myself, "What's happened the moment the kid was born, until page one of the script?" To answer that simple question, I have an infinite amount of work to do. And I enjoy that part as much as I enjoy any part of making movies.
The old-timers taught me about psychology. Whatever body part, for instance, you decided to work on, well, you worked on. If you're working on someone's arm, you don't go to the head with headlocks. You don't go to the lower body. If you start with a body part, you stay with a body part.
It's good to have a lot of once-in-a-lifetimes in your lifetime. If you get the chance to skydive, go skydiving. If you're offered a part in a weird Shakespeare play in San Diego, slap on some tights and rock out some iambic pentameter.
I'm a big golfer, so in the offseason, that's all I do - golf and play basketball. But during the season, I like to go bowling, watch movies. I love going to the movies. I go to the movies in every city we go. And when I'm at home I play video games all day.
Seeing the play ( A Lie of the Mind ) clearly is part of why I wanted to direct it. I see hope at the end of this play. People talk about how dark the play was, but I feel like, if you really look at the darkness, you're able to go through it, and you realize that you can handle dark moments in life and that everything will be all right.
Once you get everything out of your head about what everybody else is going to think, will radio play it - and I hope they do, I really do - once you shed all of that and just be who you are, that's who I am. That's taken a lot of growing up. I've come into myself musically and as a woman, and I hope to keep growing. If you don't grow, you die.
And even with traditional fashion models, where it's their job to be a certain size and a certain proportion, you have to make adjustments once you see your clothes on a real live person. Now imagine doing that with more sizes, more proportions. You really have to play with every piece. So timing is a big part of it. You have to make the time.
You can't just think that you will get a job for no good reason... And I think that the other part is you have to work your way up, you know I did a lot of Xeroxing and getting coffee...I always did what I was asked to do. I delivered. People knew that I would get things done and get them done well. And that is a big part of our resumes, are based on being responsible and being willing to do what needed to be done.
Success = 1 part work + 1 part play + 1 part keep your mouth shut
The wonderful thing about acting is you move along with your decade. The older you get, the more interesting the parts you get to play and you bring more of your personal experience to the part.
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