Despite being sober for nearly ten years, Denzel Washington, 69, openly acknowledges that his fight with alcoholism and drug abuse has had a negative impact on his physical health.
The New Yorker, who has won two Academy Awards in his career, claimed that despite trying a variety of beverages and strong substances like cocaine and heroin, wine was what captivated him.
Washington told Esquire that: “I’ve done a lot of damage to the body,” “We’ll see. I’ve been clean. Things are opening up for me now – like being seventy. It’s real.”
“And it’s OK. This is the last chapter – if I get another thirty, what do I want to do? My mother made it to ninety-seven. I’m doing the best I can.”
“Wine is very tricky. It’s very slow. It ain’t like, boom, all of a sudden. I never got strung out on heroin.”
“Never got strung out on coke. Never got strung out on hard drugs. I shot dope just like they shot dope, but I never got strung out.”
Upon adding a wine cellar to his house with his family, he admitted to spending $4000 on bottles, frequently gathering the “best” from Gil Turner’s Fine Wines & Spirits in Los Angeles.
He said that he still had some control, though. In order to limit his consumption, he only bought two bottles, which he said he managed over the day and never drank while getting ready for or acting out a role.
In Gladiator II, Denzel Washington has been lauded
Given the popularity of Gladiator II, which starred Russell Crowe and Joaquin Pheonix and won numerous Academy Awards in 2000, there are great hopes for the sequel.
And if anyone demonstrated that he was capable of handling the role, it was Washington, who played Macrinus, a cunning former slave who was fighting for control of Rome.
Peter Bradshaw, a critic for The Guardian wrote about Denzel’s performance : “Washington almost steals the entire picture,”
“As Macrinus shrewdly exploits the gambling addiction of Tim McInnerny’s weak and duplicitous Senator Thraex.”
