A reporter for “Collider” was in for a surprise after asking Denzel Washington a question about the late filmmaker Stanley Kubrick.

During the “Gladiator II” press junket, reporter Steven Weintraub asked the two-time Academy Award winner about his favorite Stanley Kubrick film. Instead of answering directly, Washington made a shocking joke, alluding to dabbling in other activities in his youth instead of watching films.

“I’m not a movie buff. No, I’m not a big movie fan,” the actor said. “I was in the street when [Kubrick] was making movies. …I’d be the one outside looking to rob you when you came out of a Kubrick movie, okay? So I wasn’t a real film buff. I didn’t start acting until I was 20 years old and didn’t start really going to the movies until I was 20, 22, 23.”

The answer had Weintraub at a loss for words, but before he could respond, Washington filled in the blanks. “That’s not true. As a teenager, I went to see movies like “Shaft” and SuperFly, you know,” Washington continued.

The clip caught mixed responses on social media, but Washington’s been an open book throughout the “Gladiator II” rollout, revealing in an "Esquire” profile that he would drink heavily and occasionally experimented with illegal substances in the past. The actor, who turns 70 on December 28, has been sober for ten years.

“I’ve done a lot of damage to the body. We’ll see. I’ve been clean. [It’ll] Be ten years this December,” he told the publication. “I stopped at sixty and I haven’t had a thimble’s worth since. Things are opening up for me now—like being seventy. It’s real. And it’s okay. This is the last chapter—if I get another thirty, what do I want to do? My mother made it to ninety-seven.”

He continued, “I’m doing the best I can. And not only alcohol—forget all that.”