Denzel Washington never went to Juilliard. His first exposure to William Shakespeare came a thousand feet down the street, at Fordham University at Lincoln Center, when he played Othello at 21.
“They wouldn’t let me in,” he joked on a recent Zoom call. “I didn’t know anything about theater acting, any of that, until I was introduced in the fall of 1975. I did a musical and found that I couldn’t sing. But I enjoyed being on the stage. The artistic director saw something in me.”
After his fall semester musical debut, the spring semester saw Washington tackle Eugene O’Neill’s “The Emperor Jones.” “I had no idea,” he said. “I did my homework and fell in love with the theater. I was green as a Southern tomato.” And in his senior year he starred in “Othello.” “I had never done any Shakespeare. I did have a couple classes.
“They wouldn’t let me in,” he joked on a recent Zoom call. “I didn’t know anything about theater acting, any of that, until I was introduced in the fall of 1975. I did a musical and found that I couldn’t sing. But I enjoyed being on the stage. The artistic director saw something in me.”
After his fall semester musical debut, the spring semester saw Washington tackle Eugene O’Neill’s “The Emperor Jones.” “I had no idea,” he said. “I did my homework and fell in love with the theater. I was green as a Southern tomato.” And in his senior year he starred in “Othello.” “I had never done any Shakespeare. I did have a couple classes.
- 2/28/2022
- by Anne Thompson
- Thompson on Hollywood
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