*If you’ve followed the career of Denzel Washington‘s son, John David Washington, you know he’s a former pro footballer turned actor like his daddy.
Well, back in the day when his pops was coaching his football team, he was known for pulling famous movie monologues to inspire the players.
Yep, Denzel would always gather the team to give an “impassioned speech,” according to Esquire.
John David says the words often sounded familiar:
“This is from the ‘Malcolm X’ speech, right?”
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In the upcoming cover story for his new flick, “Tenet,” John David talks tackle football — in the seventh grade. When he hesitated before contact, his father had him hit a punching bag again and again.
“It was like a scene straight out of ‘He Got Game,’ in which his dad played the father of a star basketball prospect,” Esquire writer Kate Storey reports.
The Esquire story goes on to note that Denzel is just as encouraging about his John David’s acting — including when he’s only there in spirit. At the first table read of Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman” in Lee’s office, sitting in the same chair his father sat in to read for “Mo’ Better Blues” with a poster of Denzel hanging above, John David recalls this moment …
“That’s when it hit me: ‘OK, if I mess this up, my career is basically over’ … The pressure hit for a moment, for those two hours, and then I was back. I was OK after.”
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