Denzel Washington in a poster of 'Gladiator II'.
Credit: X/@GladiatorMovie
London: Multiple award-winning actor Denzel Washington has sparked retirement rumours after he said that he needs to feel inspired by a filmmaker in order to take up a project as there are "very few films left" that would interest him to go to a movie set.
The Equalizer star, whose career spans over 40 years across cinema, TV and theatre, said Ridley Scott was a big draw for him boarding the cast of the director's Gladiator II.
In the upcoming film, Washington plays Macrinus, a power broker, under whose tutelage Paul Mescal's Lucius—the grandson of Rome's former emperor Marcus Aurelius and son of Lucilla—resolves to fight as a gladiator.
"There are very few films left for me to make that I’m interested in, and I have to be inspired by the filmmaker, and I was tremendously inspired by Ridley," Washington, 69, told Empire magazine in an interview.
Gladiator II, a follow-up to Scott's 2000 hit Gladiator starring Russell Crowe, reunites the master director with Washington after the 2007 thriller action film American Gangster.
"We had a great go-round, the first go-round and here we are. He’s engaged. He’s excited about life and his next film. He’s an inspiration. We should all want to feel like that at 86," the actor added.
Washington made his film debut in 1981 with Michael Schultz's Carbon Copy, in which he portrayed the role of Roger Porter alongside George Segal, Susan Saint James and Jack Warden.
The actor, regarded as one of the greatest actors in the 21st century, went on to star in films such as Glory, Training Day, Remember the Titans, Malcolm X, The Equalizer franchise and Fences.
The story of Gladiator II is set two decades after the events of the original movie.
Scheduled for release in November, the film follows a grown-up Lucius (Mescal) living in the northern African region of Numidia where he was earlier sent by his mother Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) to stay away from the reach of the Roman Empire. However, the ongoing events make him return to Rome as a gladiator.