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Denzel Washington was joined by wife Pauletta on the red carpet at the premiere of his new movie Highest 2 Lowest in New York City on Monday, Aug. 11
Speaking to PEOPLE on the red carpet, director Spike Lee said the film is “about morals and the choice people make,” as well as the tagline, “All money ain’t good money”
Highest 2 Lowest is in select theaters Friday, Aug. 15, then streaming on Apple TV+ Sept. 5
Denzel Washington had his biggest supporter by his side at the premiere of his newest film.
The actor, 70, and his wife Pauletta stepped out in New York City to celebrate his new movie Highest 2 Lowest, walking the red carpet together at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater on Monday, Aug. 11.
Pauletta, 74, is certainly not one to hold back her support of her husband. Back in May, she shared her reaction to Washington’s Othello revival, in which he costarred alongside Jake Gyllenhaal, being ignored by the Tony Awards.
“Now see, that’s not something you want to ask me,” she told reporters with a laugh, after PEOPLE asked how she felt about the snub at the time. “I can’t say that I was surprised that they didn’t.”
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Johnny Nunez/FilmMagic
Pauletta and Denzel Washington at the New York City premiere of Highest 2 Lowest on Aug. 11, 2025
“In my family we’ve been through this a lot of times. … And I think I can speak honestly and truthfully and artistically that it was denied, you know, so you wonder why,” Pauletta added. “But we don’t have to wonder why: It’s narrow-minded people that are in charge of making decisions and judgments.”
A24’s Highest 2 Lowest marks director Spike Lee’s first time working with Washington since their 2006 heist thriller Inside Man. It had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May.
“When a titan music mogul, widely known as having the ‘best ears in the business,’ is targeted with a ransom plot, he is jammed up in a life-or-death moral dilemma,” teases a synopsis for the movie, which also stars A$AP Rocky.
David Lee/A24
Denzel Washington in Highest 2 Lowest (2025)
Highest 2 Lowest is Washington and Lee’s fifth movie together; their creative collaboration began with 1990’s Mo’ Better Blues and has also included the 1992 biopic Malcolm X, 1998’s He Got Game and Inside Man.
The new movie is a “reinterpretation” of the famed Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 crime thriller High and Low, “now played out on the mean streets of modern-day New York City.”
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Speaking with PEOPLE at the Highest 2 Lowest premiere on Monday, Lee, 68, said he was motivated to reunite with Washington again after almost 20 years because the two-time Academy Award winner sent him a script — and after reading it, Lee said, “Let’s go.”
Asked about what message he hopes to convey with the film, the director says, “It’s really about morals and the choice people make, and also the tagline from the poster [that is something] Denzel says in the film: ‘All money ain’t good money.’ “
Highest 2 Lowest is in select theaters Friday, Aug. 15, then streaming on Apple TV+ Sept. 5.
Read the original article on People
