Denzel Washington announces he is retiring after the next batch of films

Denzel Washington is unstoppable when it comes to that The big decision.

The 69-year-old revealed he plans to retire from Hollywood after lining up a number of acting projects.

“I don’t know how many more films I’ll do. Probably not that many,” Washington said in an interview with Australia’s Today on Monday. “I want to do things I haven’t done yet. I played Othello when I was 22, and I’m about to play Othello when I’m 70. Then I play Hannibal. Afterwards I talked to Steve McQueen about a film. After that, Ryan Coogler is writing a role for me in the next Black Panther.”

He added: “After that I’ll do the film ‘Othello.’ After that I’ll do ‘King Lear.’ After that I will retire.”

Washington got his start with the 1977 TV movie Wilma, followed by the 1981 film Carbon Copy.

Meanwhile, Black Panther became one of the MCU’s hallmarks, with the 2018 film starring Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong’o and Michael B. Jordan grossing more than $1.3 billion at the box office.

Boseman died of colon cancer in 2020 at the age of 43.

The 2022 sequel “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” paid homage to the late actor and continued the story of Wakanda and its people.

These days, Washington is focused on promoting “Gladiator II,” the sequel to Ridley Scott’s 2000 action film.

Gladiator II is set more than two decades after the events of the original Gladiator film, which starred Russell Crowe. In the sequel, Paul Mescal plays the adult Lucius Verus II, the son of Crowe’s character Maximus, who is eventually forced into slavery and becomes a gladiator to gain his freedom, similar to his father in the first film.

Washington portrays Lucius’ former slave and mentor, Macrinus. The actor announced his possible retirement in August.

“I have very few films left that interest me,” Washington told Empire magazine. “I have to take inspiration from the filmmaker, and Ridley inspired me tremendously.”

The pair previously worked together on the 2007 film “American Gangster.”

“We had a great lap in the first round [on ‘American Gangster’]and here we are,” Washington continued. “He’s engaged. He is excited about life and his next film. He is an inspiration.”

“At 86, we should all want to feel that way,” the star added.

But during an appearance on Britain’s The Graham Norton Show last month, Mescal, 28, briefly gushed about meeting the Oscar winner on set.

“It was a big day in my life – it was incredible. I spent the first day thinking, “I need to introduce myself to him,” and stood there for several minutes before I [decided]“Not today,” the actor recalled. “The next day I decided to be a brave boy.”