We all have that one song that you might call your guilty pleasure since it might seem that you can’t just get it out of your head. The chorus will run around your mind like a loose bullet, and you’re left with no choice but to chant it all over again until it leaves after a few days, only to resurface now and then again.
After a while, however, its familiarity will cover all of you like a comfort blanket you have as a child, and you’ll learn to hate to love this particular song. And, if any of these sound familiar to you, well, then there’s a chance that this same ‘guilty pleasure’ concept might also apply to some of your movie lists. Maynard James Keenan also picked his guilty pleasures for the A.V. Club back in 2014 and disclosed some of the films and actors he couldn’t give up on.
When it came to listing one of his final picks, he simply said, “Anything with the Denzel [Washington]” in it, and when the host corrected the frontman by not adding ‘the’ before Denzel, Keenan emphasized that ‘the’ was necessary because Washington meant a lot to him more than any of the other actors on his list. So the rocker was then asked why he loved the actor so much; he had a few ready answers.
“I don’t know,” said Maynard but continued by stating that his growing up watching the actor’s films might be a huge factor. “I guess I’m a product of American living. Germans love David Hasselhoff, and I just love the Denzel Washington. I can’t explain it. It’s that guilty pleasure. It’s almost like when you’re a kid, and you have your blanket. He’s my comfort blanket.”
He then discussed what his favorite film of Washington was. The singer listed, “‘Training Day’ is one of my favorites, I think. I can’t put my finger on it, but it just resonates with me. Believe me, it’s not one of my favorite films at all, but it’s the one that’s most memorable for me. We could go on for hours about film and just one single part of one film that resonates with me or whatever.”
Maynard continued, “For example, in ‘The Last Boy Scout,’ stupid movie, but Kim Coates, his whole part with Bruce Willis was so f*cking memorable that he owned that piece, and he took that thing as far as anyone could take it and I’ll remember it forever I like films that have those moments where artists take something, make it their own, and take it beyond the realm of any possibility. On paper, you couldn’t have possibly explained to Kim Coates what to do in that scene, but he took it and owned it.”
So, one of the Tool frontman’s guilty pleasures was anything with ‘the’ Denzel on it, as he couldn’t just get enough of the actor and his acting skills. Washington was a childhood hero, and Keenan loved to watch him in anything he might be on as his bond with the actor felt like a comfort blanket.
