'Who cares?': Denzel Washington dismisses cancel culture
The Oscar-winning actor was dismissive of the concept when asked if he feared being "cancelled" during an interview to promote his new movie Highest 2 Lowest.
Denzel asked Complex News in response: "What does that mean - to be cancelled?"
When told by interviewer Jillian Hardeman-Webb that "it means you lose public support", the Gladiator II star said: "Who cares? What made public support so important to begin with?"
Washington also poured scorn on the interviewer's claim that "followers are now currency".
The 70-year-old star said: "I don't care who's following who. You can't lead and follow at the same time, and you can't follow and lead at the same time. I don't follow anybody. I follow the heavenly spirit. I follow God, I don't follow man. I have faith in God. I have hope in man, but look around, it ain't working out so well."
Denzel continued: "You can't be cancelled if you haven't signed up. Don't sign up."
The star has won two Oscars for his roles in Glory and Training Day and says that he's "not that interested" in landing another Academy Award.
Denzel - who has received 10 Oscar nominations during his career - told Jake's Takes: "I don't do it [make movies] for Oscars. I really don't care about that kind of stuff.
"I've been at this a long time, and there's times when I've won, shouldn't have won, didn't win, should have won.
"Man gives the award, God gives the award. I'm not that interested in Oscars. People say: 'Well, where do you keep it?' I say: 'Next to the other one.'"
He went on to add: "I'm not bragging. I'm just telling you how I feel about it. On my last day, it ain't going to do me a bit of good."
Denzel found it hard to take when he missed out on the Best Actor gong at the 2000 ceremony for his role in Hurricane to Kevin Spacey's performance in American Beauty.
He recalled to Esquire magazine: "At the Oscars, they called Kevin Spacey's name for American Beauty. I have a memory of turning around and looking at him, and nobody was standing but the people around him.
"And everyone else was looking at me. Not that it was this way. Maybe that's the way I perceived it. Maybe I felt like everybody was looking at me. Because why would everybody be looking at me?
"Thinking about it now, I don't think they were. I'm sure I went home and drank that night. I had to. I don't want to sound like: 'Oh, he won my Oscar', or anything like that. It wasn't like that."
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