Entertainment Weekly Picks Denzel Top Entertainer
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Capping a stellar year for actor Denzel Washington, showbiz magazine Entertainment Weekly picked the Oscar winning actor and, now, director as 2002’s top entertainer in its edition hitting newsstands on Friday.
“Denzel reached new heights in his career this year, artistically, commercially and in a business sense,” said Dave Karger, senior writer and author of the magazine’s cover story on the actor.
Following Washington on the list was “Spider-Man” Tobey Maguire in second, The Osbournes third, actress writer Nia Vardalos of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” fourth and rounding out the top five were Simon Cowell and Kelly Clarkson from hit TV show “American Idol.”
Karger said that it wasn’t so much what Washington had accomplished winning Oscars or scoring big at box offices, but in directing his first movie, the personal drama “Antwone Fisher,” which opens in New York on Dec. 19.
“And its not only that he directed his first movie, but it is a fantastic movie … It’s not that he did it, but that he did it in a really accomplished way,” Karger said.
Still, add up the 2002 accomplishments for Washington, and it’s a pretty impressive list.
In March, he earned the best actor Oscar for playing a corrupt cop in “Training Day,” becoming only the second black American to claim Hollywood’s highest acting honor — Sidney Poitier was the first in 1963’s “Lilies of the Field.”
The Oscar was his second after taking supporting actor honors for 1989’s “Glory.” It came as his “John Q,” in which he plays a man who takes over a hospital emergency room because he can’t get attention for his sick son, was claiming a box office victory after few industry pundits had given it much a chance.
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Washington, too, scored his first $20 million paycheck for thriller, “Out of Time,” putting him among Hollywood’s highest paid leading men.
To top it all off, his directorial debut, the low budget drama “Antwone Fisher,” about a young man’s heroic efforts to find the family that abandoned him, is also receiving — you guessed it — Oscar buzz.
But if there is one man who doesn’t care about so much about all that Oscar attention, it is Washington. He tells the magazine that despite being an Academy member, he doesn’t even vote in the annual awards.
“My wife takes care of that because she’s a real film buff,” he said. “They may throw me out of the Academy or whatever, but she actually watches them all.
Washington recalled that he came to Hollywood 20 years ago to act in early 1980’s television show “St. Elsewhere,” and that right after winning the Academy Award this past year, he was thinking about his long climb to the top.
“I was going, ‘Boy, that was an interesting 20-year chapter,” he said.
The actor, who turns 48 years old this month, said that as he begins a new chapter of his life, he has looked at the careers of the likes of Clint Eastwood and Warren Beatty, who also transitioned from acting to the director’s chair.
“In the back of my mind, I was going, ‘You know, sooner or later, the calls are going to stop coming. From 2002 to 2022, what do you go for now?’ I think filmmaking is the next part of that,” Washington told the magazine.
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