{"id":40147,"date":"2026-02-06T06:02:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T06:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/?p=40147"},"modified":"2026-02-06T06:02:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T06:02:16","slug":"too-evil-to-exist-denzel-washington-reveals-the-one-thriller-genre-he-swore-off-after-becoming-a-father-saying-parenthood-changed-how-he-weighs-a-300m-hit-against-7-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/?p=40147","title":{"rendered":"\u201cToo Evil to Exist.\u201d \u2014 Denzel Washington Reveals the One Thriller Genre He Swore Off After Becoming a Father, Saying Parenthood Changed How He Weighs a $300M Hit Against 7 Deadly Sins."},"content":{"rendered":"
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In the mid-1990s, Denzel Washington<\/span><\/span><\/strong> stood at a rare crossroads: immense star power, artistic freedom, and scripts arriving with almost mythic expectations attached. One of them was Se7en<\/span><\/span><\/em>, a grim detective story centered on a serial killer punishing victims according to the Seven Deadly Sins. The role of Detective David Mills was his\u2014until Washington turned it down.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the time, the decision baffled Hollywood. The film would go on to gross over $300 million worldwide, redefine the modern crime thriller, and help launch Brad Pitt<\/span><\/span><\/strong> into a new tier of stardom. But Washington\u2019s reasoning had nothing to do with money or career calculus. It was about fatherhood, faith, and the kind of darkness he was willing to carry home.<\/span><\/p>\n

Washington, the son of a Pentecostal minister and a man who has long spoken openly about his spiritual life, later described the script as \u201ctoo demonic.\u201d The brilliance was undeniable, but the worldview troubled him. The film\u2019s nihilism\u2014its insistence that evil not only exists but wins<\/em>\u2014felt incompatible with where he was in life. Raising young children in the 1990s, Washington believed that immersing himself in such hopeless material came with a spiritual cost no paycheck could offset.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the time, Se7en<\/em> promised a reunion with his Glory<\/em> co-star Morgan Freeman<\/span><\/span><\/strong> and collaboration with director David Fincher<\/span><\/span><\/strong>, whose meticulous vision would later be widely celebrated. Still, Washington trusted his instincts. Parenthood had changed how he weighed success\u2014not just in box office numbers, but in emotional residue.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ironically, regret followed. After seeing Fincher\u2019s finished film\u2014with its rain-soaked cityscapes, philosophical dread, and infamous final act\u2014Washington admitted he misjudged its artistic architecture. \u201cI saw the movie and I was like, \u2018Oh, I blew it,\u2019\u201d he later said, laughing at himself. He recognized the craft, even if he still questioned the cost.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hollywood\u2019s sense of irony wasn\u2019t done with him. Just three years later, Washington starred in Fallen<\/span><\/span><\/em>, playing a detective hunting a literal demon\u2014an outcome fans have pointed out ever since. Yet the difference, Washington has suggested, lies in intention. Fallen<\/em> wrestled with evil; Se7en<\/em> drowned in it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite missing out on one of cinema\u2019s most influential thrillers, Washington\u2019s career hardly suffered. Roles in films like Crimson Tide<\/em> and Devil in a Blue Dress<\/em> leaned toward moral complexity without total despair. In hindsight, his refusal to engage with Se7en<\/em> wasn\u2019t fear\u2014it was boundary-setting.<\/span><\/p>\n

For Denzel Washington, becoming a father didn\u2019t make him less daring. It simply taught him that some darkness, no matter how masterfully made, wasn\u2019t worth bringing home.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In the mid-1990s, Denzel Washington stood at a rare crossroads: immense star power, artistic freedom, and scripts arriving with almost mythic expectations attached. One of them was Se7en, a grim detective story centered on a serial killer punishing victims according to the Seven Deadly Sins. The role of Detective David Mills was his\u2014until Washington turned…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnews.topnewsource.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}