Actor Denzel Washington had his mother to thank in more ways than one for going Hollywood. Dealing with her, the Oscar-winner might’ve gotten his first real taste of performing.

Denzel Washington discovered the benefits of acting at an early age

Washington’s mother, Lennis Washington, steered her son down the right path at an early age. Washington confided that he had a mischievous side to him in his childhood years, which was encouraged by the company he kept. But his mother’s influence helped Washington avoid the same fate that the friends he grew up with had.

“My three closest friends did quite a bit of time [in jail] … decades,” Washington once told ABC News.

“I was what they call ‘throwing rocks at the penitentiary,’ but I never hit it,” he added. “I never got caught … But I also knew right from wrong, so I never wanted to go too far.”

Washington was sent to a private school, whereas his friends either lived out their remaining adult years in prison or ended up dead. But ironically, getting into trouble with his mother might’ve given Washington his first experience with acting.

“I do remember when I was a little kid I stayed out way too late and it’s probably why I started acting. I knew I was going to get a whipping when I got home,” Washington said in a resurfaced interview with Telegraph.

To avoid being disciplined, the Oscar-winner invented a fake scenario where he was already beaten up.

“I stopped outside the door of the house and I could hear my mother and father in the kitchen so I actually ripped my shirt, put spit under my eyes, messed up my hair. I was already messed up because I’d been out most of the night. But I came in,” he said. “And I went through a whole business [of how he’d been attacked] and my mother said ‘You see, that’s what you get for staying out late. Now go in to the bathroom and clean yourself up and come in and sit down and eat’. And I remember looking into the mirror and thinking, ‘Ha, maybe I should try this again.’”

However, Washington wasn’t entirely sure he managed to trick his mom.

“Maybe while I was in there my mom was thinking ‘That little knuckle-head thinking he was fooling us.’ I don’t know, but yes, I got away with it,” he remembered.

Denzel Washington credited his mom for keeping him humble

Thanks to his mother’s influence, Washington furthered his education by going to Fordham University, where he intended to become a doctor.

“I was actually pre-med. I thought, ‘You go to college, be a doctor.’ Then, I went into political science, pre-law … I found out I wasn’t doctor material, I found out I wasn’t lawyer material, then I started studying journalism,” Washington said.

Journalism led to Washington choosing to act as a profession in his Junior year, which put him on the path to stardom. But the Training Day star was humbled at an early age. In an interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Washington remembered that the success he’d gotten from acting started to get to his head. His mom brought him down to Earth quickly by reminding Washington of all the support he’d been receiving throughout his career.

“She said, ‘First of all, you don’t know how many people been praying for you and for how long,’” he said. “Then she told me to get the bucket and the squeegee and clean the windows.”