During the current press run for Gladiator II, Denzel Washington revealed in one interview the films he’s planning on doing before he hopes to scale back his acting roles, including Black Panther 3.
Though the Marvel film hasn’t been officially confirmed, he told Australia’s Today show that Ryan Coogler is working on a part for him in the project.
“I played Othello at 22,” he said. “I am about to play Othello at 70 [on Broadway]. After that, I am playing Hannibal. After that, I’ve been talking to Steve McQueen about a film. After that, Ryan Coogler is writing a part for me in the next Black Panther. After that, I’m going to do the film ‘Othello,’ After that, I’m going to do King Lear. After that, I’m going to retire.”
Washington didn’t mention the upcoming Spike Lee film he shot recently, High & Low.
The actor also said that he was only interested in working with the “best” filmmakers at this point in his career, given the fact that he doesn’t plan on making that many more films.
This lines up with what he told Blavity’s Shadow and Act in our recent Gladiator II interview with him.
“It’s all about the filmmaker,” he said. “[And] the material obviously…but I only want to work at his point in my life…with great directors…directors that are going to help me grow and stretch,” he said. “I don’t have too many more movies in me so it’s gotta be with the best.”
In a separate interview with with BuzzFeed UK’s Seasoned, he said something similar to what he told us, and said he did not mean he was going to retire outright, explaining, “I didn’t say I was gonna go into retirement, I said it has to be at a level of interest to me.”
The late Chadwick Boseman notably credited Washington for the Black Panther being able to be made and revealed that Washington paid for his acting school tuition one summer.
“There is no Black Panther without Denzel Washington,” Boseman said when presenting Washington with the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2019 “My whole cast stands on your shoulders. The daily battles won, the thousand territories gained, the many sacrifices you made for the culture on film sets through your career, the things you refused to compromise along the way lay the blueprints for us to follow.”
Watch that full interview that Denzel Washington did with Blavity’s Shadow and Act for Gladiator II above.