John David Washington Reconnects With Nature as the Face of Tom Ford Beauty’s New Fragrance

For actor John David Washington, a trip to Northern California’s mystical Big Sur region to shoot the campaign for Tom Ford Beauty’s newest fragrance, Bois Pacifique, marked a return of sorts.

The first and last time he’d visited the area was back during summer 2020, in the still-foggy limbo of the pandemic, when he and Zendaya shot the 2021 Sam Levinson film Malcolm & Marie. The cast stayed in a resort there, and the area’s usual hum of tourists was nearly silent.

“We were in a different time back then in 2020,” Washington says, speaking recently from his home in Los Angeles. “It was a trip going back there shooting this campaign.”

But in a new ad spot shot by photographer David Sims, Big Sur is on display in all its usual glory: rugged redwoods, misty mountains, soaring eagles, and amber waves of grain. In the clip, Washington drives a retro Mercedes-Benz 450SLC along the lush coastal highways as though he were a new series regular in Big Little Lies. Over an ambient soundtrack, Washington provides cinematic narration: “And then to my surprise, I fell on Big Sur by accident. The woods found me.”

Courtesy of David Sims for Tom Ford Beauty

The landscape informs Bois Pacifique’s arboreal scent profile, which comprises notes of sandalwood, cedar, and oakwood warmed with cardamom, turmeric, and resin. There is also an unusual note called akigalawood, a fragrance molecule crafted using a fermented biotechnology process as a substitution for the extraction of agarwood trees, which are endangered due to overexploitation. According to a Vogue Business report, the company also deployed a proprietary AI tool, Carto, to develop the specific blend.

Fragrance is a massive pillar in Tom Ford’s Estée Lauder-owned brand empire, which reported net sales for its fragrance business have more than doubled since 2020, with half of that revenue originating from male consumers, per Vogue Business. Bois Pacifique marks Tom Ford Beauty’s 133rd fragrance iteration, and John David Washington, eldest son of Denzel Washington, is its second-ever male celebrity ambassador, after British actor Joe Alwyn.

“Being a part of an iconic brand, I was a little hesitant, because I don’t really know how to sell shit, you know what I mean?” Washington tells me, chuckling. But the process of working with Sims—in addition to the generally nebulous premise of marketing something as abstract as a scent—turned out to be more of “trying to embody a vibe,” which felt closer to filmmaking than he’d expected.

“It felt more like we’re filming a movie-slash-documentary, in a way,” he said. “This just feels like we’re creating something. I perked up with that. That was my kind of language.”

Sims and Washington envisioned the actor’s role here as a character who’s feeling burnt out by the biz—be it the Hollywood grind or life in the big city—and gets in touch with nature to find his artistry again. It helped, of course, that shooting the campaign took place in the real-life nature of Big Sur.

“It wasn’t like we’re on a soundstage. We didn’t fake it. It wasn’t a green screen. We were there. We were in the natural locations, which a lot of studio films don’t even do,” Washington says. If viewers were to watch the Bois Pacifique commercial as if it were a movie trailer, he hopes his character would pique their curiosity.

“Who is this gentleman with a beard and braids in the woods? What is this about? This is a cool concept,” the actor says. “I think that’s kind of what we were going for, and it’s something new for Tom Ford.”

Being back among the California redwoods, Washington found himself getting lost in a few takes. At times, the experience verged on therapeutic.

“There was one set up we had, I was literally hugging a tree, and circling it, and touching it, and connecting,” he recalls, laughing. “It was like I was tripping on shrooms or something, and I wasn’t—totally professional—but as we kept doing take after take, and David [Sims]’s calm, podcast, sleeping-app voice kept repeating like, ’Just keep going, just keep feeling it, find it,’ I was in a trance in a way. I felt like I was getting hypnotized by the allure of what nature brings. This natural connectivity to something very primal, and something very internal, and something maybe ancestral.”

That residual tranquility may come handy in the coming months. It’s been a busy season for the Washingtons, with John David and his brother Malcolm collaborating on the August Wilson adaptation The Piano Lesson, while their father may well make an Oscars run for his scene-stealing turn as ornate schemer Macrinus opposite Paul Mescal in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II.

“It’s been amazing to see how the people are receiving what Malcolm did [with The Piano Lesson] and how they’re receiving Danielle Deadwyler’s performance,” he says. Plus, “I am excited for my father. It’s a great achievement. You know, hopefully it all works out because he was incredible in Gladiator II, and he’s been incredible consistently throughout the decades. So it’s not that surprising, but it is nice when he gets properly recognized.”

Speaking of Denzel, John David had a more straightforward response than the elder Washington did when asked for his favorite Stanley Kubrick film:“I’ll go with Clockwork Orange for now, because that shit is amazing.”