Denzel Washington revealed that December 2024 will mark ten years since he stopped drinking wine.
The movie star, 69, spoke with Esquire magazine during his promotional tour for his new film Gladiator II, explaining that he started drinking two bottles of expensive wine a day after he and his wife Pauletta built a house with a 10,000-bottle wine cellar in 1999.
Denzel said he would stop this habit while preparing to work on a movie and also during filming – but would immediately resume once his projects were completed – a pattern he has followed for fifteen years.
The star, who turns 70 on December 28, said wine was “doing a lot of damage” to his body.
Denzel Washington revealed that December 2024 will mark ten years since he stopped drinking wine.
Denzel told the magazine that his wine drinking really started in 1999 — though he did say he was drinking wine before that — when he and his wife built their house “with a wine cellar for ten thousand bottles,” explaining that that’s when he “learned the best drinks.’
Explaining: “So I’m going to drink my ’61 and my ’82 and whatever we had.”
“Wine was my thing,” Denzel explained, “and now I was breaking $4,000 bottles just because there was leftovers.”
The movie star said he would call the LA wine shop, Gil Turner’s Fine Wines & Spirits, and tell them, “Send me two bottles, the best of this or that.” And my wife says, “Why do you keep ordering two?” I said, ‘Because if I order more, I drink more.’
Denzel said he would limit his daily wine intake to two bottles and drink them both “over the course of the day.”
He did this every day for fifteen years, stopping only during preparations for a new project and during filming.
After months of filming, he resumed his daily habit of two wine bottles.
He said he initially came up with the idea of doing wine tastings because he only drank the best wine.
Denzel stars as Macrinus in the film Gladiator II, which also stars Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal and Joseph Quinn; seen in Gladiator II
The movie star, 69, spoke to Esquire magazine during his promotional tour for his new film Gladiator II, explaining that he started drinking two bottles of expensive wine a day after he and his wife Pauletta built a house in 1999 with a capacity of 10,000 bottles of wine. cellar; Denzel and Pauletta pictured in September at the Toronto International Film Festival
Denzel said he never “got hooked on” heroin or coke, although he did say he “did dope, just like they shot dope,” but that he “never got off the hook.”
The actor told Esquire that December marks 10 years since he drank wine, noting that he has “done a lot of damage to the body” through the habit.
Denzel stars as Macrinus in the film Gladiator II, which also stars Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal and Joseph Quinn.
The film, directed by Ridley Scott, will be released in theaters on November 22.