Denzel Washington has dismissed cancel culture, saying “you can’t be cancelled if you haven’t signed up”.
The Fences and Training Day star, who is currently promoting his crime thriller Highest 2 Lowest, was asked if he ever worries about being “cancelled” in a new interview.
In response, the 70-year-old asked Complex News: “What does that mean – to be cancelled?”
After being told by interviewer Jillian Hardeman-Webb that “it means you lose public support”, Washington said: “Who cares? What made public support so important to begin with?”
When Hardeman-Webb explained that “followers now are currency”, Washington said: “I don’t care who’s following who. You can’t lead and follow at the same time, and you can’t follow and lead at the same time. I don’t follow anybody. I follow the heavenly spirit. I follow God, I don’t follow man. I have faith in God. I have hope in man, but look around, it ain’t working out so well.”
He added: “You can’t be cancelled if you haven’t signed up. Don’t sign up.”
Earlier this week, Washington also admitted he doesn’t care much about the Oscars.
Washington has been nominated for 10 Oscars during his five-decade career, winning twice – for Glory in 1990 and Training Day in 2002.
“I’ve been at this a long time, and there’s time when I won and shouldn’t have won and then didn’t win and should’ve won,” he said in a recent interview. “Man gives the award. God gives the reward.”
He continued: “I’m not that interested in Oscars. People ask me, ‘Where do I keep it?’ Well, next to the other one. I’m not bragging! Just telling you how I feel about it. On my last day, [Oscars] aren’t going to do me a bit of good.”
Highest 2 Lowest is out in UK cinemas on 5 September. The movie reunites Washington with longtime collaborator Lee, who directed him in 1992’s Malcolm X and 2006’s Inside Man, among others.
In a three-star review of the film, when it launched at Cannes, The Independent’s critic Geoffrey Macnab wrote that Washington, who plays a man whose life comes crashing down, gives a “surprisingly one-note performance”.
He wrote that, while Washington “remains as magnetic as ever, switching in a second from affability to menace”, the performance is “ultimately weakened by his refusal to show any emotional vulnerability whatsoever”.