{"id":1960199,"date":"2025-08-14T15:29:04","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T15:29:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=1960199"},"modified":"2025-08-14T15:29:04","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T15:29:04","slug":"denzel-washington-knows-all-money-aint-good-money-but-he-made-it-all-the-same","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/denzel-washington-knows-all-money-aint-good-money-but-he-made-it-all-the-same\/","title":{"rendered":"Denzel Washington knows all money ain\u2019t good money \u2013 but he made it all the same"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Denzel Washington knows \u201call money ain\u2019t good money\u201d \u2013 but sometimes you\u2019ve got to put food on the table.<\/p>\n
The tag line for Spike Lee\u2019s latest film \u201cHighest 2 Lowest,\u201d in which Washington stars as a music mogul caught in a ransom plot on the eve of a big business deal, had the two-time Oscar winner reflecting on past money jobs in an interview with celebrity.land.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mother used to say, \u2018Do what you gotta do, so that you can do what you want to do\u2019 \u2013 it\u2019s not the other way around,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we had four children, I was doing stuff I had to do. You go back and look in the mid-\u201990s \u2013 I won\u2019t mention any movies, I\u2019ll just say the mid-\u201990s, around there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA couple (of movies) for the kids?\u201d chimed in Jeffrey Wright, Washington\u2019s co-star.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore than a couple for the kids \u2013 and the wife, and the house, and the bank, and everybody else,\u201d Washington replied.<\/p>\n
A quick sweep of his credits around then and you\u2019ll find a few duds, sure, but there\u2019s also \u201cCrimson Tide,\u201d \u201cPhiladelphia\u201d and \u201cThe Pelican Brief\u201d (surely he doesn\u2019t mean these).<\/strong> And at either end of the \u201990s, two Spike Lee collaborations, \u201cHe Got Game\u201d (1998) and their masterpiece, \u201cMalcolm X\u201d (1992). Washington\u2019s career has been nothing if not consistently packed with gems. As for his kids, the money jobs paid dividends: John David and Olivia are successful actors, Malcolm a film director, and Katia is a producer.<\/p>\n
\u201cHighest 2 Lowest\u201d is Lee and Washington\u2019s fifth film together. The actor brought the script, a reimagining of Akira Kurosawa classic \u201cHigh To Low\u201d (1963) \u2013 itself based on 1959 novel \u201cKing\u2019s Ransom\u201d by Evan Hunter \u2013 to the director, for what would be their first collaboration since 2006\u2019s \u201cInside Man.\u201d<\/p>\n
Transposing the story of a Japanese shoe executive to the New York music business, many of the key elements remain. Washington\u2019s record exec David King believes his son has been kidnapped, only to learn the kidnapper (A$AP Rocky) has mistakenly taken the son of his chauffer Paul (Jeffrey Wright). Should King still pay the ransom, even if it drains his bank accounts, scuppering plans for him to buy back control of his company? What was a clear-cut decision when he thought it was his own flesh and blood is muddied when it\u2019s someone else\u2019s child.<\/p>\n\n