Denzel Washington is aging gracefully and it’s not coincidental. The actor, who’s been doing press tours about his latest movie, Gladiator II, has opened up about his health journey. While Washington, 69, is an extraordinary actor, he faces ordinary struggles like weight gain. During a recent interview, the actor admitted to not being happy with his physical appearance two years ago and making changes as a result.
“I was looking at pictures of myself and Pauletta at the Academy Awards for Macbeth, and I’m just looking fat, with this dyed hair,” the legend said in the Winter issue of Esquire, where he’s a cover star rocking a head full of gray hair.
He continued, “I said, ‘Those days are over, man.” To begin his journey to a more optimal weight, Washington accepted the help of a friend.
“My good friend, my little brother, Lenny Kravitz, said, ‘D, I wanna hook you up with a trainer.’ And he did, and he’s another man of God. I started with him in February of last year,” Washington said.
“He makes the meals for me and we’re training, and I’m now 190-something pounds on my way to 185.”
“I feel like I’m getting strong,” the Golden Globe award winner added. “Strong is important,” he told Esquire. “I’m doing the best I can.”
The hard work has paid off since the two-time Academy Award-winning actor looks leaner and more agile than ever in his new Gladiator II movie.
In addition to training and meal planning, Washington also opened up about his past alcohol use during the Esquire interview. Washington said wine was “tricky” and his dependence on it happened subtly over time.
“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,” he said. “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.”
The Training Day actor shared that he also had a wine cellar in his home. “I learned to drink the best. So I’m gonna drink my ’61s and my ’82s and whatever we had. Wine was my thing, and now I was popping $4,000 bottles just because that’s what was left,” Washington said.
The actor added that he would also call Gil Turner’s Fine Wines & Spirits on Sunset Boulevard and request two bottles of the best of ‘this or that.’
When Washington’s wife of over four decades, Pauletta, would ask why the actor kept ordering two bottles, he replied, “ ‘Because if I order more, I’ll drink more. ‘So I kept it to two bottles, and I would drink them both over the course of the day.”
The Fences actor made it clear that he would never drink while working ro preparing to work.
“I would clean up, go back to work — I could do both. However many months of shooting, bang, it’s time to go. Then, boom. Three months of wine, then time to go back to work,” she said.
The actor also said during the interview that he wasn’t drinking when filming Flight, a 2012 drama where he played an alcoholic pilot.
“I’m sure I did as soon as I finished. That was getting toward the end of the drinking, but I knew a lot about waking up and looking around, not knowing what happened,” he told Esquire.
“I’ve done a lot of damage to the body. We’ll see. I’ve been clean.”