During a 2015 speech at a Church of God in Christ (COGIC) banquet, Washington recalled how a woman in his mother’s beauty shop once predicted he would “travel the world and speak to people.” The actor said, “Now mind you I was 20 years old, with a 1.7 grade point average and had flunked out of school. She said, ‘You are going to preach,’ … and I guess she was right.”
Washington says his family and community never stopped praying for him and modeling how “to live out one’s faith and to trust God’s plan.” He adds, “There has never been a time when God didn’t direct, protect, or correct me. There may have been times where I was less than faithful to him, but he had faith in me.”
Washington next appears with Frances McDormand in “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” a black-and-white Shakespeare adaptation that premieres at the New York Film Festival tomorrow and opens in theaters on Christmas Day.