In an exclusive interview with Xan Brooks published on The Guardian.co.uk, everybody’s favorite actor, Denzel Washington opens up about not being a Hollywood guy and not kissing a$$ just to get by in Hollywood. He had this to say, “Actually, even within the industry, I don’t have any actor friends. My friends are old friends. One’s an ex-music guy, the other’s a restaurant owner and the other’s an ex-pro ballplayer.”�
When Xan went on to press on that topic and asked why he didn’t have many friends among his colleagues, Washington proceeded to say, “Because I don’t make friends! Maybe I’m not a butt-kisser, maybe I’m not a schmoozer. I’m not about to go to a party to try to get a job. And then when you have children, the other friends become other parents. We’d coach baseball or basketball. My wife and I were raised right. I don’t want movie-star friends. And being African American, there were no big movie stars to hang out with anyway, not when I was starting out, they were just the third guy from the back! For whatever reason, I never befriended any white actors.”�
Of course in typical Hollywood fashion, one of Denzel’s PR people came to the rescue regarding the Guardian story, “I sat in on this interview. �The part they failed to mention was after he said “�never befriended any white actors’ he mentioned “�except,’ and then listed Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts, etc. They cut the rest of the thought out. The rest is fine though.”�
Denzel also doesn’t consider �himself a celebrity and defines himself differently. “In the current culture of celebrity in America. “I’m a working actor!”� he declared. “What’s a celebrity anyway? Paris Hilton’s a celebrity. I’m just a working actor.”�