Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Denzel Washington is paying homage to the late actor James Earl Jones, who died this week at 93. “He’s my hero,” Washington tells Variety. “My college theater career started because of ‘The Emperor Jones’ and ‘Othello’ with James Earl Jones.” Jones starred in the stage adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s play “The Emperor Jones” in 1971 and played the titular “Othello” in Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival and later Off-Broadway production in 1964.