Denzel Washington’s inspirational Commencement speech: “Do you have the guts to fail?” (video)

Denzel Washington is one of the most respected actors in Hollywood, but the actor confessed to stirrings of stage fright when faced with a daunting role at the University of Pennsylvania; standing before nearly 5,000 graduates as the University’s Commencement speaker.

The award winning actor described his experience at the Ivy League graduation ceremony as, “a little overwhelming and out of my comfort zone.”

Washington says he accepted the invitation to speak as a challenge and a lesson for himself. “I had to come exactly because I might make a fool of myself. I’ve found that nothing in life is worthwhile unless you take risks. Nothing.”

In his speech the actor said, “Failure is inevitable.” Instead of having something to fall back on, he recommended graduates should “fall forward” — learn from their mistakes and to on keep trying. He referenced Thomas Edison, who had countless failed experiments before experiencing the euphoria of success with the light bulb.

“Do you have the guts to fail?” Washington asked. “If you don’t fail, you’re not even trying.”

Washington shared one of his own early “failures”, confessing he was a pre-med student at Fordham University in New York, before he switched to pre-law, then to journalism and when he was close to flunking out, the actor switched to drama and finally received his degree.

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2010 Tony Nominations

 

BEST PLAY:

In the Next Room by Sarah Ruhl

Next Fall by Geoffrey Nauffts

Red by John Logan

Time Stands Still by Donald Margulies

BEST MUSICAL:

American Idiot

Fela!

Memphis

Million Dollar Quartet

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Broadway Review: Fences

Let me just get this out of the way – Denzel Washington was outstanding. The very minute he walks onstage, he fills the theater with his presence and you just sit back and enjoy the ride he’s about to take you on.

Fences opened last night at Broadway’s Cort Theater for a limited run through July 11^th and judging from the packed, enthusiastic audience I saw it with, this will be a hard show to get tickets to.

It stars Washington as Troy Maxson, a 53-year-old sanitation worker who once had aspirations of a career in baseball. Married to the devoted Rose (Viola Davis), their back and forth talk, mostly with sexual undertones make for a seemingly happy marriage. Mid way through the first act, his best friend, Bono (Stephen McKinely Henderson), begins to hint at some definite character flaws in Troy that come up in the second act; some shocking, some not.

The show was great and as I said before, Denzel (I’ll call him by his first name, sure) was incredible. The only problem I had – and I’m not sure you can even call it a problem – was the Denzel was so fantastic that he made everyone else look just good. Do you know what I mean? He raised the bar so high that everyone was trying to get to the same level that he was on. Sometimes they were there and sometimes they weren’t.

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Denzel Washington and Viola Davis on the Broadway revival of “Fences”

You really have to watch this.

Denzel Washington and Viola Davis talk about why they are doing this revival of Fences, their early careers in the theater and more.

This snippet is a little over 5 minutes but you can see the passion they have for the show, acting and life.

Watch it!

Update:
Here is the whole discussion. It’s broken down into 5 parts because YouTube can only handle shorter videos.