Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Of course I have my father guiding me, and I have people who I have actually grown up with and who advise me.
People sometimes approach me tentatively or suspiciously because of my father's reputation as a world-class negotiator, as if they think I'm about to take advantage of them. As if I know something I'm not letting on.
As someone who grew up with a father who was the prime minister, many people liked me, and many didn't. I don't pay much attention to labels and certainly don't let people define me through the labels they apply. I stay focused on what I need to do.
I think in the case of my father, in terms of the things that influenced me, he never pressed me to go into academics or pressed me to go to a field, and indeed, my behavior was largely to move as far the other direction. I don't think that's uncommon with people with very successful parents.
I remembered some people who lived across the street from our home as we were being taken away. When I was a teenager, I had many after-dinner conversations with my father about our internment. He told me that after we were taken away, they came to our house and took everything. We were literally stripped clean.
I've had the acting bug since I was, like, five. But growing up, I saw how people treated me differently when they knew who my father was, even the stuff I did on the field. Sometimes I'd rush for 100 yards, and the headline would be, 'Denzel's son runs for 100 yards.' That's where the suppression of that bug came from.
Well people often ask me how I felt growing up with a father who was a politician and who was often away. But when I'm asked that question I often reflect on my inability really to be able to answer it in any relative sense because I never grew up with a father doing anything else. So I just have no idea what it would be like otherwise.