Age: 71
male
Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. (born December 28, 1954) is an American actor, producer, and director. Known for his dramatic roles on stage and screen, he is widely regarded as one of the best actors of his generation, with The New York Times declaring him the greatest actor of the 21st century in 2020. Over his career, he has received several accolades, including two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Tony Award, as well as nominations for two Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award. Washington has been honoured with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2016, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2019, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2022. After training at the American Conservatory Theatre, Washington began his career in theatre, acting in performances off-Broadway. He first came to prominence in the NBC medical drama series St. Elsewhere (1982–1988) and in the war film A Soldier's Story (1984). He won two Academy Awards, his first for Best Supporting Actor for playing an American Civil War soldier in the war drama Glory (1989) and his second for Best Actor for playing a corrupt police officer in the crime thriller Training Day (2001). He was Oscar-nominated for his performances in Cry Freedom (1987), Malcolm X (1992), The Hurricane (1999), Flight (2012), Fences (2016), Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017), and The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021). A prominent leading man, Washington also acted in Mo' Better Blues (1990), Mississippi Masala (1991), Philadelphia (1993), Courage Under Fire (1996), Remember the Titans (2000), Man on Fire (2004), Inside Man (2006), American Gangster (2007), and The Equalizer trilogy (2014–2023). Washington directed and starred in the films Antwone Fisher (2002), The Great Debaters (2007), and Fences (2016). On stage, he has acted in productions of both Coriolanus (1979) and The Tragedy of Richard III (1990) at the Public Theater. He made his Broadway debut in the Ron Milner play Checkmates (1988). He won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his role as a disillusioned working-class father in the Broadway revival of August Wilson's play Fences (2010). He has also acted in the Broadway revivals of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (2005), Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun (2014), and Eugene O'Neill's play The Iceman Cometh (2018).
Denzel Washington
Tick Wills
for Tick Wills in Southpaw
Suggested by screenwritersjournal
Billy "The Great" Hope is an undefeated professional boxer living in the suburbs of New York City with his wife Maureen and their daughter Leila. Billy's particular style of fighting often leaves him beaten and bruised. During a match in which he defends his light heavyweight world title, Billy sustains an eye injury as well as heavy blows to the face and body, leaving him coughing up blood for days. He is finally convinced by Maureen to retire before he becomes forever "punch-drunk". During the press conference at the post-match, an up-and-coming boxer Miguel "Magic" Escobar taunts Billy and tries to get Billy to fight him. At a charity event for the orphanage where he and his wife both grew up, Escobar is in attendance, and as Billy is leaving, Escobar threatens he'll take Maureen and his title away from him, and while Maureen tells Billy to let it go and go home with her, Billy's anger gets the best of him, leading to a brawl in which Maureen is accidentally shot and killed by Miguel's brother Hector, who flees..
