Personal Brand of Denzel Washington: “Ordinary guy”

Name: Denzel Washington

Country: The USA

Career duration: 1975 — n/d

Net worth:(as for 2018) $220 million

“Some people will never like you because your spirit irritates their demons”

Denzel Washington is the example of the strong and loyal person, who took a highly creative job and mastered it to the level he has become one of the most expensive Hollywood actors, but still, saved his identity as a “ordinary guy”. He is one of the most respected actors in the business, famous theatre player, movie director, and loyal family person with deep faith. Let’s look a little bit deeper at his Personal Brand.

Unique experience

Denzel Washington for sure is one of America’s leading men. He has received tons of critics for his work since 1990, including his accurate portrayal of historical figures. His break out movie role occurred in 1992 in the movie “Malcolm X”, then he followed up with the critically acclaimed role of boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter in 1999 in the movie “The Hurricane”.

During his bright career he has received two Golden Globe awards, one Tony Award, two Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actor for the historical war drama movie “Glory’ (1989) and Best Actor for his role as corruption detective Alonzo Harris in the crime thriller “Training Day” (2001). The performance for the latest makes him the second Afro — American actor (the first was Sidney Poitier) to win the Oscar as the best actor. In 1996 he was the first black man to be named by People magazine’s as the Sexiest Man Alive.

Washington has been in the industry for nearly four decades and as of 2018, Denzel Washington’s net worth is approximately $220 million.

The beginnings were humble for this larger-than-life star. He was raised in a primarily Afro-American area and saw many of his young peers getting involved with drugs and crime. His mother Lennis was worried that her son would get into the wrong community, so she made the decision to send him to the Oakland Military Academy to educate and discipline him.

Later Denzel Washington went to Fordham University and received B.A in Drama and Journalism. After graduating in 1977 he discovered his passion for acting and attended the American Conservatory Theater.

Washington shared how his mother always would pray for him, and Heaven replied. Not only her son remained off the streets, but he considered becoming a preacher and reading Bible daily. Denzel often wondered if he should have chosen a professional career as a pastor, and admitted that a part of him wishes he took a job in the pulpit. But he said it was important to do good as a Christian while he was working in Hollywood. Washington has pushed and has continued to defy odds by being married to Paula Pearson since 1983, something that is rare in Hollywood.

While Denzel has proven to be the philanthropist, he has also proven that he knows how to manage his money. It is quite common to hear about actors and other celebrities who make large amount of money over their career and end up broke. The slowdown of Denzel’s career has not resulted in the diminishing of his wealth. He still appears to be growing his net worth. It is clear that the vast majority of his net worth was produced through his work as an actor, and it is likely that he still has some more quality work to put in front of the world. Denzel has definitely put in the work to be recognized as one of the best to ever do it, and it is fair that his bank reflects his effort and commitment.

The 63-year-old actor is a rare example of a sustained career filled with movies that have pleased critics and audiences alike. His movies have grossed over $3.7 billion at the global box office, but he has also got eight Oscar nominations — and won two awards.

Denzel Washington still plays on stage. Moreover, in 2018 he was nominated on Tony Award as best leading actor in the play “The Iceman Cometh”.

“An actor learns to act onstage,” he declares. “Actors can’t learn to act in movies, because making a movie offers limitless second chances to get things right. Not so with theater.”

5 points of Denzel Washington’s Personal Brand

• Ordinary guy

First of all, Denzel Washington has never posed himself as a celebrity. He loves his work, but acting was always just work for him. It’s not his identity.

“What’s a celebrity anyway?” — he said once. — “Paris Hilton’s a celebrity. I’m just a working actor.”

He calls himself a ordinary guy. He drives his truck even if he has Aston Martin, he makes friend with parents of his children’s friends, he had coached baseball and doesn’t want movie-star friends.

Denzel Washington married Pauletta Pearson in 1983, and defies all Hollywood statistics, they’re still married and have four adult children. In 1995, they renewed their vows with Archbishop Desmond Tutu officiating.

• Hard worker

If one judges actors by how adeptly they immerse themselves in the roles that they play, then Washington is the industry’s leader; the performer who would not be caught. He simply disappears into a role. Washington, for all his verbal flurries and on-screen explosions, is Hollywood’s actor who hides in plain sight.

However, discipline and focus are the true keys to his success. Without these, many of the tasks Denzel began would remain unfinished and he would fail to realize his abilities. With hard work and perseverance, however, the sky is the limit. Self-employment attracts Washington powerfully, yet his challenge is to settle into one area to cultivate his ability sufficiently to earn a living and attain success. Once Denzel Washington finds his niche, the motivation and inspiration he supplies others with will bring him much in return, and he will find his friends and colleagues supporting and promoting him on the road to success.

When Washington took on a supposedly nonracial part like the pilot in “Flight” or the bad cop in “Training Day,” he inhabited the role with the body, accent and attitude that are, like his first name, identifiably Afro-American. Denzel is not the man who tolerates disrespect. And because he is almost always the most capable, and often the most admirable guy in the room, audiences don’t just respect him. They want to be him.

“Acting was my calling,” he says today. “The year I started acting there was a woman in my mother’s beauty shop, a kind of seer if you like, who kept looking at me in the mirror. Finally, she got a piece of paper and wrote ‘prophecy’ at the top. She said: ‘You are going to travel the world and preach to millions of people.’ Now, bear in mind that I’d just been kicked out of school. I said: ‘You see anything there about me being let back into school?’” He chuckles. “That was March 75 and September 75 I started acting. I still got that piece of paper too.”

• Decision maker

During all his career it was him who choose what to play. Basically, Denzel’s career is based on saying “no”. Even at the very begging, he preferred to refuse some roles in the movies. Instead, he simply went to play in a theatre and waited for interesting chances. This way he was nominated for the first time just after his fourth movie. Washington had a definite idea of where he wanted to be, years before he actually became a superstar.

There’s a story about Denzel Washington in the 1980s. Back then, ABC carried a celebrity athletic competition called “Battle of the Network Stars,” and they would match up celebrities in sports events as well as wacky competitions like obstacle courses, and they’d often pair them in teams like the cast from a certain TV show. Anyway, when “Battle of the Network Stars,” asked Washington to be on, since it paid $10,000 or something around that for exerting/embarrassing yourself for a couple of days before the cameras. Washington said no and explained: “because movie stars don’t do that kind of things.”

• True believer

He is definitely also one of Hollywood’s highest-profile Christians. He is the son of a Pentecostal minister from New York, and has been a keen member of West Angeles Church of God in Christ for over 30 years. Sticking to the good habits he was brought up with, he continues to read Bible daily. When it comes to his work, Denzel chooses roles that he can develop into some kind of positive message.

“I remember some years ago asking my pastor: ‘Do you think I’m supposed to be a preacher?’ And he said: ‘Well, you are. You have a pulpit of your own.’” Washington has shared once. “That’s not to say that I’m preaching, necessarily. I don’t want to tell you what you need to do. I mean, I’m not turning it up to 10 when it comes to being correct, I’m not that guy, I like my wine.”

In one of his interviews, Denzel expressed that religion didn’t play a role in his life; it was his life. Everything else is just making a living.

One thing many people wouldn’t necessarily know about Mr. Washington is that every step of his distinguished career, the award-winning actor and director has committed to philanthropic work. He and his wife, Pauletta Washington, have worked with and donated to numerous organizations, raised millions for The Smithsonian Museum of African-American History, and starting a multi-million-dollar effort to renovate playwright August Wilson’s childhood home. Mr. Washington always has another film or play he could be plugging, but his heart seems to lie with his charity work. As he explained, the feeling he gets from serving others is one of the most rewarding experiences possible.

Beyond just being generous with his money, Denzel Washington also gives freely of his time, serving as the spokesperson for Boys & Girls Clubs of America for 20 years. Both his parents worked when he was a kid, so he’s been a member himself since he was 6.

• Naturally charming

His appearance plays not the last role in his Personal Brand. After everything we have mentioned before, he was named the sexiest man of 1996. Did you even know, that Denzel has the perfect face?

Newsweek did a piece in the 1990s on facial symmetry, as this is an indicator of attractiveness. The author used Washington as a prime example of perfection. The symmetry of one’s face is what makes one attractive. The article was called “Biological Basis of the Perceptions of Beauty,” and Washington had the factors that make him perfect. He had the perfectly centered nose perfectly aligned eyes, lips, and ears.

Worth to be mentioned, that Denzel Washington is one of few Hollywood stars, who does not have fear of age. He’s aged quite remarkably, proud of his age, without taking on that plastic look so common among celebrities.

And we can bet few of you have ever noticed that he has a bad pinky finger. During a game of basketball as a kid, Washington broke it and it is still crooked and bent 45 degrees from his other fingers. His pinky finger was never set back right, but no one seems to care.

Social media presence

What makes Denzel Washington quite out of our age (and remarkable because of it) is that he doesn’t use any social media. He maintained that 20 years ago life was all about the information age but things have changed greatly because of social media, such as Twitter and Facebook. Now he doesn’t use any kind of social media. His official Twitter account was stopped in 2016, and even back then it seemed to be run by some outsourced managers.

https://twitter.com/denzelwn?lang=en

“I Google, I’m the Google master when I need information,” he told once. “With this character, I studied Aspergers but I didn’t go on the social network.”

Denzel has expressed the idea that the younger generation is addicted by social media and the root is in the desire to be liked.

“Just because you don’t share it on social media, doesn’t mean you’re not up on big things. Live it and stay low key. Privacy is everything.” — he addresses to the modern generation.

Fears and Vulnerabilities

In fact, Denzel Washington is the good example of how to manage your vulnerabilities.

He has taught temper and is quite stubborn. He himself confesses these things and explains that these can affect his family sometime. “Pauletta and the kids would get used to doing things a certain way, and then I’d arrive and start telling the kids what to do. It was a long time before I noticed her sighing as I did that.” — he said. But by accepting this part of himself he also works on it.

As we have mentioned before he is not present in social media. And for a celebrity in our digital age, there is a high chance to be forgotten without any online presence. But Denzel Washington doesn’t really care about it and even more — in past few years he’s become one of the most expensive movie actors.

Racism remains a big question in Hollywood, but it also doesn’t touch Denzel. When he was asked about Oscar for Malcolm X (which he was nominated, but didn’t get), he simply answered: “I voted for Al Pacino. He was nominated 8 times and hadn’t won. I was nominated 3 times and I had already won. Do you think they’re prejudiced against Italian-Americans? For whatever reason, he hadn’t won, but then he did. Are there prejudices? Yeah. On both sides; on all sides. That’s human nature. Is that the only reason? No, I don’t believe that. I’m living proof that it’s not true.”

That doesn’t make him ethnically neutral. He is a star and thus always himself. We don’t forget his race in order to accept his individuality or that of his characters; his heritage is part of who he is.

What we can learn from Denzel Washington:

– Don’t let your popularity consume your identity;

– Remember that even an extraordinary job is just a job:

– Always choose what to do and what not to do.

Hollywood breeds all kinds of people: famous actors, amazing showmen, successful directors, every kind of artists and creators. But not all are like Denzel Washington. Denzel Washington is loved by millions of people all over the world, he welcomed high-level stars like Michael Jackson and Nelson Mandela on his Birthday party as good friends, coached school sports teams of his children and drives a truck.

If a star can maintain the brand of an ordinary guy, why ordinary people couldn’t create a bright image of themselves? Your digital reputation needs a lot of time and efforts to build, so start today and don’t hesitate to outsource professionals.

Links to the video about Denzel Washington’s Personal Brand: https://youtu.be/pLhzp_vZkY8

https://youtu.be/smcoXi9pGA4per

Do you want to know how to build your Personal Brand online? Check it here: www.aicy-create.com