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My name is John David Washington,
and this is the first time.
The first time I was star struck
is when I met Morgan Freeman because
I had watched the movie Glory
just a thousand times plus
and I had every line memorized,
I knew every character, all the
backstories. I knew the war
sequences.
I knew everything I know because I
dug the grave.
And all the time I'm digging.
I'm asking myself when we're no
longer going to be our time.
The way he was in that movie, he
just he had this very
father figure like
energy to him and characteristic.
So when I got to meet him, finally,
I just lost it.
You know, I wanted him to say as I
asked him for an autograph.
I didn't get the autograph, though.
It was crazy, actually, it was the
pilot for
aired when I was in New York with
some friends and we went out and
there was a there was a gentleman
that said, oh, you're despicable.
I love it.
The character Ricky Jarret of the
party, give me the TV remote, get
some popcorn and some lick.
So I guess, you know, being
despicable is a positive in the
community. I guess I did my job, so
I was the first time.
That depends.
I saw plenty of touchdowns in my
uncle's backyard in North Carolina.
I must have been maybe five or six
years old when I scored a touchdown
in the backyard, but organized team
activity. The first time I scored a
touchdown, I think it was 13 South
Valley Panthers.
It was a fullback dove up the middle
and I scored it.
It was an amazing feeling.
It was a very proud moment for me.
First, New York City experience,
well, first time I've been
on an airplane by myself, I was
13 and I went to visit my
grandmother. It wasn't the first
time I was there, but it's the first
real experience I felt like I had
because I was with my parents or
with my siblings.
I was with my grandma, my other
cousin who are from there.
And I just remember how
how cool it was just to be able to
walk around the city like that.
Like for a whole day.
We spent the whole day outside my
grandma let me play a pickup game
when we came back to Mount Vernon
and and I was doing well that she
told me to say, let's go, hurry up,
get in the house or get in the
apartment. It's time to go.
And I'll have one of those great
games, too. I was having a moment,
but that's a very fond
memory. That's that's why I consider
that my first. But I mean, I was the
first time I don't remember.
I was I was a baby.
And then I had other times the
fragmented in my memory,
like my my father walking
us around Central Park while he
recited lines for Richard.
The third the first time
I saw him on stage.
That's when I really fell in love
with acting when I saw him do that.
The first time I stepped on a movie
set that I can remember was the
movie Glory, we were with the final
battle scene and I was sitting with
my mom, I guess we're in Video
Village and I see my father
coming up out of the flames and
ashes in the night and his blue
union suit looking very heroic.
And he looks at me and he says,
you want to come down and you want
to see it.
And I was I was giddy.
I was very excited.
And I turned to my mother and I
asked her, can I go?
Can I go?
And she said, no, she shut me down.
So that's why I will never forget
that I'm on my dreams down.
The first time I read the Tenet
script coming off a
wild buzz of excitement,
of knowing that I got the job, I
remember going to their
office, Christopher Nolan's office,
I saw all the interstellar
posters and in
in figures and it was like
I was in his later.
It felt like it was amazing.
I was like I felt like I was behind
the curtain of Oz and
I pulled out my iPad, played some
classical music, and I read
for about four and a half hours.
I kept turning the pages back and
forth. I couldn't understand how he
was going to pull this off.
And I would to make sure I
understood what I was reading.
I did not until
later. Those were the happiest
moments ever of my life.
Just in that moment, reading a
Christopher Nolan script.
It was a hero of mine and
and knowing that I was going to be a
part of it.