who teaches you to be a man you know but uh fame is a is a monster you know and we all have
these ladders or battles of roads we have to walk in our given lives
be you famous or or whoever's out there listening we all have our individual challenges
it's cliche money don't make it better it don't it fame just magnifies the problems
and the opportunities stay on your knees watch me but listen to god don't listen to me i hope
that the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart are pleasing in god's sight but they're
i'm human i'm just like you you know what i have will not keep me on this earth for one more day
i never looked at things as problems i look at them as opportunities maybe look maybe
that's something i can say you know someone else when she did this and i don't know well what an
opportunity you have yeah yeah yeah what the world you know because they did this and then said that
yeah well what an opportunity you have to make a difference because you never know who's watching
what i played in the movies is not who i am it's what i played the essence of
it which what you're talking about is what i wanted to come through
but i'm not gonna sit or stand on any pedestal and tell you about what i had
in mind for you or your soul because the fact of the matter is in the whole 40-year process
i was struggling for my own so you know society is forcing success down our throat comparative
success down our throat you know i don't know if the bible says it but it's it's somewhere it says
in the last days we'll become lovers of ourselves you know i have a god-fearing loving faithful wife
who has taught me so much about family i'm from a broken home seeing her consistency in in in and
really running the household while i'm out hunting you know and and and understanding the importance
of family and you know i protect her i love her and i provide for her and
and but that's my job but i you know the the they talk about the roles we have with no but
that doesn't mean one role is more important yes i'm the bread winner but my children
are winners because of my wife and the type of house she's established tonight march 27 1975 a
prophet named ruth green prophesied that i would travel the world and preach to millions of people
i was flunking out i had flunked out of college i was in my mother's beauty shop and she kept
looking at me in the mirror and every time i looked up she was looking at me so she wrote
it down i still have a piece of paper i've told this story before she didn't say you're going
to be an actor she didn't say you're going to make you know movies you make millions
and all that make a long story long 1982 i was filled with the holy spirit it just wasn't ready
what my mother said to me was denzel you do a lot of good but you must do good the right way
she said and you know what i'm talking about can't buy your way in
you can't love your way in you got to serve you got to do good the right way so at 66
getting ready to be 67 having just buried my mother i made a promise to her and to god
to do not just to do good the right way but to honor my mother and my father by the way i live
my life the rest of my days on this earth i'm here to serve to help to provide in every prayer you
know the ego's interesting you just don't know but in every prayer all i hear is feed my sheep
that's what god wants me to do i'm like wait a minute what does that mean well
what i found out in the last couple of years of hearing it that there's all kinds of sheep
not everybody wants to go right to the so that's why i talk to experienced shepherds like yourself
to help guide me so to make a long story longer going back to your question
it can be wobbly the world has changed what is our role as a man you know the the the
the the john wayne formulas is not quite doesn't fit right right now but uh strength
yes i've been high up on the mountain i've been blessed but that's a slippery slope yeah and it's
lonely up there yeah you know people don't know that side of it life has humbled me i used to say
i wanted to be the best actor in the world when i won the second oscar i said i wanted to be the
best actor i could be now i don't even necessarily want to be an actor it's not my goal anymore it's
not a burning desire for me i may segue out of it in the next few years if not sooner
but to go all the way back to your question none of that would have happened
without the family none of that would have happened and not just my wife but the love
i give to my children and love i give back coaching and oh i was one of the worst coaches i
you know getting in fights with other dads and all that you know but i love to inspire i like that
i like seeing people do well it was so interesting i ended up becoming an actor because i've never
been the out front guy i just like i like seeing people do good rationalize justified if you will
what i was doing by speaking through my work i asked the pastor a a bishop blake
i said well do you think you know i told him that story i don't know how many years ago you think i
should be a pastor who would do what she told she said no he said no you have your pulpit so
i always looked for that for lack of a better word angle what's the story that the only thing i wrote
on the cover of training day was the wages of sinner's death i had the end of that film changed
for in order for me to justify living in the worst way i had
to die in the worst way he died in a very small way in the in the script
but i purposely wanted him to be knocked down on the ground and crawl like a snake i purposely
wanted everyone in the community to turn on him and i wanted him to die in the most violent way
so for many many years and decades i did that through my work and through my philanthropy
and through being a good guy and all of those things that's not the case anymore the number one
photograph now is a self selfie yeah so all we all want to be follow no you know we all want to lead
i should say we want fight we want we're willing to do anything young ladies and young men anything
to be influential yeah yeah you know the universal stems from the specific where's your soul where's
your heart where does it start do you want credit for it or do you want to see the
other person do well it's the most selfish thing i've done in my life is give because of the joy
that i get from it i love it i don't like it i love it i don't know if that was my nature for
my mother taught me i remember i was starting to be a little successful my mom said i came i
said mom did you think she said you shut up right where you are or people been praying
for you grandfather's great grandfather then she started calling me superstar for about
a month hey super go get that squeegee in that bucket superstar hit them windows superstar hey
superstar come here hit the back you know she had me clean on the ground on the ground so we
that that that unit that family i didn't do it by myself i couldn't have done it obviously without
my mother i couldn't have done it without my wife i couldn't have done it without my children
and dreams without goals can you digest dreams come on and ultimately they fuel disappointment
exactly on the road to achieving your dreams you must apply this all comes from pastor but not
i just stole it it sounds familiar yes you must apply discipline but more importantly consistency
because without commitment you'll never start but without consistency you'll never finish so the
position i have the money i have the stardom i have the joy that we're paying or whatever
i've given to people through the films that i've done don't make me any better leave room to learn
you