*”Ballers” star John David Washington says he was quite the “curious” kid back in the day and that didn’t always have a positive outcome for him.
Washington has teamed with Spike Lee again for the upcoming comedy “BlackKklansman” (August 10). The two previously collaborated on “Malcolm X,” when John David was a kid — and his father, Denzel, starred in the title role. The Oscar winner has starred in four of the director’s films, to his credit.
To promote the film, the 34-year-old actor appeared on Chicago’s WGN and was asked if it was hard growing up with Denzel as his father. He joked that, in fact, it was mom Pauletta who was the tough one.
“Is it difficult to be his son? It’s difficult to be Pauletta Washington’s son [laughs],” he said. “I got a lot of whoopings back in the day. I was a very curious kid.”
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But in another interview with Great Day Washington, he credits Pauletta for helping him achieve his career goals.
“They were very supportive parents in all my endeavors. They have very different approaches on how they give advice,” he said. “My mother is very positive, and encouraging, and nurturing, as a mother should be. She’s my auditioning partner. She says when it’s not good enough, she says when I’m ready. ‘Work on this.’ That kind of thing. She helped me get Ballers. We worked a lot on that. Now the old man, he has a different approach.”
John David said living in the shadow of his famous father was quite challenging and he often found himself acting out rebelliously in an effort to make a name for himself and be his own man. He even played football from 2006 to 2012.
“It was sort of this rebellious quest of independence,” he said. “I used it as fuel to engineer this football career. As my father started ascending in the business, people around me started to treat me different. Our lives changed. So that anxiety, that sort of resentment, I just funneled it through football. Bash heads. And like they say, it was helmet syndrome. They can’t see my face, it’s just the last name. So it’s like, ‘Who’s that Washington kid out there?’”
But when asked if he misses the sport, John emphatically said no.
“Ask my knees, ask my achilles,” he said. “I just came off of a sports hernia, football’s parting gift to me. So I don’t miss it.”
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