Actor Denzel Washington has always been hesitant to call himself a leading man. Despite becoming one of the biggest celebrities in the film industry, the Training Day star still carries himself like he’s never left the theater.

Denzel Washington pushed back against the term Hollywood actor

Washington recently returned to his roots with the Broadway play Othello, which he stars alongside Jake Gyllenhaal. It’s one of the many projects he’s doing as he prepares to bow out of the spotlight for good. But theater has always been familiar territory for the Oscar-winner. Like many actors, Washington got his start in the business performing live plays.

“I was in college, took a class and did a play,” he once said in an interview with Female. “I was looking for what I wanted to do in life, studying a little of this, a little of that and I found my niche. I had great people around me, including my mentor Bob Stone, who was an actor and a great, great friend who said, ‘You have a gift for this,’ and to be 20 years old and someone say that to you…”

However, as he became more successful in the industry, he maintained his connection with theater. Julius Ceaser, Fences, and Raisin in the Sun, were also some of the other plays he’s done over the past two decades. He delved into his passion for stage acting a bit more in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning. During the segment, Washington dropped the surprising admission that he still sees himself as primarily a stage actor.

“I’m a stage actor who does film; it’s not the other way around,” Washington explained. “I did stage first. I learned how to act on stage, not on film. Movies are a filmmaker’s medium. You shoot it, and then you’re gone, and they cut together and add music and do all of that. Theater is an actor’s medium. The curtain goes up, nobody can help you.”

Additionally, he still seems a bit uncomfortable labeling himself a Hollywood star.

“What’s the definition of a Hollywood actor? Myself, I’m from Mt. Vernon, so I’m a ‘Mt. Vernon actor,’” he said. “I don’t know what ‘Hollywood’ means. Somebody who’s famous on film? A film actor, great success on film?”

It’s a feeling that Washington seems to have always maintained. He echoed similar sentiments in his 2012 interview with The Talks.

“Well, I’m not a big Hollywood star,” he said. “I’m an actor. I’m called a star. That’s not what I am. First of all I’m a human being; my profession is acting. People give you titles. They say you’re an up and coming star, then they say you’re a star, then they say you’re a washed-up star. So I don’t get caught up in what I’m called. My job, my profession, is acting.”

Denzel Washington didn’t think he’d ever leave the stage

Perhaps Washington’s admiration for stage work also stems from the fact that he didn’t think he’d leave theater.

“At the time where we were New York theater snobs, I thought I was gonna do Broadway and there was no Hollywood,” Washington remembered. “I’ll do O’Neil, I’ll work my way through Tennessee Williams, on my way back, do Shakespeare so that’s what it was for me. And that was enough. That was great and maybe do some commercials to supplement the income, and be a working actor.”

His career, however, went in a different direction. Although he once promised himself he’d never go Hollywood, he’s been able to enjoy the benefits of a lucrative film career. But the American Gangtser star still considers the stage to be the best place for an actor to test their craft. So much so that he encouraged young actors to perform in front of live audiences before performing in front of cameras.

“It’s very unfortunate in this accelerated society and business that a lot of young kids don’t get a chance to develop,” he said. “They have the look or whatever and they’re 20 years old and boom, they’re big stars and they never really learned how to act. The actors I respect are all from the theater. Viola Davis, Meryl Streep, they’re both from the theater, you know?”