Today he’s world famous: Do you know who plays this little guy in Malcolm X?

At the age of 39, after a brief career as a professional American football player, young American actor John David Washington seems set to follow in his father Denzel’s footsteps in Hollywood, building a growing filmography. more solid.

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The enigmatic hero of Christopher Nolan’s fascinating Tenet and the tortured hero of Gareth Edwards’ recent creation, the versatile actor also delivered an impressive performance opposite Zendaya in the 2021 drama Malcolm & Marie.

In 2018, with Spike Lee’s feature film BlackKkKlansman: I Infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan, in which he played the main role, John David Washington was truly revealed to the general public. But contrary to what one might think, this film, which was awarded the Grand Prix at Cannes, is not the first collaboration between the actor and the director of Do The Right Thing.

Indeed, 26 years earlier, when he was only 8 years old, it was in front of Spike Lee’s camera that a very young John David Washington took his first steps on the big screen. Thus, we can see him during a very brief shot at the end of Malcolm X, starring his father Denzel Washington.

In the final moments of the feature film, when a teacher celebrates the famous political activist’s birthday by telling his students that they are “all Malcolm X,” we see several African-American schoolchildren rise from their chairs to face the camera and each take turns declaring “I’m Malcolm X!” The first of them was John David Washington.

“I was a little kid and I didn’t say more than three words, ‘I am Malcolm X.’ That was my only line, and I said it with passion.”said the actor after many years on the microphone CNN.

After this very small role – concise but emblematic – John David Washington waited until 2015 before setting foot on the set again. In this case, the series Ballers, in which he played a professional football player with Dwayne Johnson.

(Re)discover the credits of the series…