Denzel Washington opens up to ‘Esquire’ about his faith and sobriety

Denzel Washington is one of the most famous people on the planet, but he shows a new side of himself in a first-person feature in Esquire.

Denzel looks back at having “one foot” in the rough streets of Mount Vernon, New York, growing up, and tracks his life from then to today. 

In his youth, Denzel explained, “I shot dope just like they shot dope, but I never got strung out. And I never got strung out on liquor. I had this ideal idea of wine tastings and all that — which is what it was at first. And that’s a very sub­tle thing. I mean, I drank the best.”

He said he’d down two bottles of “the best” on the daily, but clarified, “I never drank while I was working or preparing. I would clean up, go back to work. … However many months of shooting, bang, it’s time to go. Then, boom. Three months of wine, then time to go back to work.”

Denzel said he’ll be sober 10 years this December.

Now 70, Washington says his “little brother” Lenny Kravitz hooked him up with a trainer. “Things are opening up for me now — like being seventy,” Denzel says. 

“It’s real. And it’s okay. This is the last chapter — if I get another thirty, what do I want to do? My mother made it to ninety-seven.”

Of his faith, Denzel says, “I know now. God is real. God is love. God is the only way. God is the true way. God blesses. It’s my job to lift God up, to give Him praise, to make sure that anyone and everyone I speak to the rest of my life understands that He is responsible for me.”

“I’m unafraid. I don’t care what anyone thinks,” Washington says, adding of his faith, “you can’t talk like that and win Oscars. … It’s not talked about in this town. It’s not talked about.”