Legendary actor Denzel Washington is to take on another Shakespeare role, most likely in Barbara Broccoli and Daniel Craig’s planned take on Othello.
Just a few years after playing the title role in Joel Coen’s The Tragedy Of Macbeth, it looks like Denzel Washington is set to take on another cinematic interpretation of one of Shakespeare’s most noted tragic heroes: Othello. The actor revealed the future role on The Today Show, mentioning the role while chatting about future projects (including a Steve McQueen project) and publicising the release of Gladiator II which opens in UK cinemas this week.
While it’s possible that more than one version of Othello is currently in development at the moment, Washington is probably referring to the project being spearheaded by producers Barbara Broccoli and Daniel Craig. The former 007 starred in an off-Broadway production of the play several years ago, playing Iago, while David Oyelowo played the titular Othello. The show received excellent reviews and Craig and Broccoli have reportedly spent the last two years trying to find funding to adapt that version of the play (which was directed by Sam Gold) into a feature film.
In the end, the pair are said to have secured Qatari funding for the project, with more speculative rumours suggesting that they secured funding by agreeing to set part of the next Bond film in Doha. Given that we still seem to be no closer to actually getting a new actor to play 007, we imagine we’ll be waiting some time to find out if there’s any truth to that part of the story.
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Washington is an accomplished stage actor, having trod the boards in his fair share of Shakespearean adaptations. His turn in 2021’s Macbeth as the morally-compromised nobleman was acclaimed, although given that the film is only available on Apple TV, his performance probably hasn’t been seen as widely as it deserves to be. As he pointed out in his interview, in which he also revealed he’s to appear in Black Panther 3, Washington also played Othello at the start of his career. “I played Othello at 22, I’m now going to play it at 70.”
If there’s a sour element to this tale, it’s that David Oyelowo appears to have been left out in the cold. The actor earned rave reviews for his turn as Othello in Sam Gold’s stage version – which is set in an American military barracks in Iraq. If Washington is the lead role in the same production however, it looks like Oyelowo won’t have the chance to bring his acclaimed turn to a wider audience. We’ll bring you more on this one as we hear it.
