Denzel Washington hates talking about himself. To anybody. Ask anybody. Talented, gifted, great guy, inner steadiness. Those are the adjectives you get before the inevitable refrain: ”But there was always this shell around him . . . .”
Oh, yeah?
He hits the room like a clenched muscle-backpack flung to the floor, black baseball cap yanked tight-sending the press rep out for grapefruit juice . . . hold it, Evian water . . . and then diving for the bookcase like a drowning man.
Last night there was the red-eye from L.A.; tomorrow rehearsals start for Shakespeare-in-the-Park. Today, today, he`s got an hour, give or take, to fool with the press; how he hates it.
”Come on, let`s talk about something else,” says the 35-year-old actor, cocking an eye at the wall, arms in the stance, a miniature Louisville Slugger plucked from the bookcase poised over his shoulder.
It`s a clever bit of business, this sports ploy, the kind of performance critics have admired in Washington`s best film roles. From his smoldering Private Peterson in ”A Soldier`s Story” to the coolly understated Steve Biko in ”Cry Freedom” to the defiant Civil War infantryman Trip in ”Glory,”
Washington creates morally complex characters shaded by wit, intelligence and barely concealed anger.
He says he has ”no agenda,” political or artistic, other than to do
”what I want to do.” But collectively, those film roles comprise a slim but high-profile portfolio of performances by the actor who had been known largely for his low-key portrait of Dr. Phillip Chandler in the long-running television series, ”St. Elsewhere.”
”America`s best young black actor,” said the critics, a growing chorus about Washington`s emerging film career.
Still, Washington received only one job offer after his Oscar-nominated performance in ”Cry Freedom.” Not until he landed a featured role in
”Glory,” Edward Zwick`s 1989 film about the Civil War`s first black regiment-and earned an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in April-did Washington ”got the Midas touch career going,” as actor/director Robert Townsend, one of Washington`s closest friends, says.
The word on Washington now, after 15 years in the business and being one of only five black American actors to earn an Oscar, is that he is the first black leading man since Poitier to appeal to a multiracial audience. Washington is gifted, handsome and black, that minority among minorities, a working black actor. More significantly, he is a leader among that handful of artists-which includes Morgan Freeman and Danny Glover-who are redefining how black Americans are portrayed in film.
Like director Spike Lee, with whom he is paired in Lee`s just-released new jazz film, ”Mo` Better Blues,” Washington is riding a series of cinematic successes that are not only bouying his own career but also helping shape the role of black Americans in Hollywood.
And he`s doing it, even more remarkable in bottom-line-minded Hollywood, without having had a blockbuster hit. Even ”Glory” was not a heavyweight in the gross receipts column. Indeed, Washington`s reputation has been earned as much with his hits as with his misses. Two of his lesser-known films, ”For Queen and Country” and ”The Mighty Quinn,” both released earlier this year to mixed reviews and abbreviated runs, demonstrated a range of acting talents only suggested in his earlier, more subdued performances.
Now Washington is using his Oscar clout to keep his options open. This year he is working on a purposefully broad range of projects. He is set to star in an action picture produced by Joel Silver of ”48 HRS.” and ”Die Hard,” fame. But before that he`ll play a carpet salesman in a small art film, ”Mississippi Masala,” directed by Mira Nair, the Indian filmaker who directed ”Salaam Bombay!” After that, Washington will resume the political mantle: He expects to play Malcolm X, the assassinated Black Muslim leader.
But now it`s ”Mo` Better Blues,” a glossy, sophisticated jazz film that pushes the sexual quotient on Washington as Leading Man. He plays Bleek Gilliam, a gifted but obsessive trumpet player who has a series of callous-and R-rated-love affairs.
”He`s a guy we all know who has to take a fall before he gets his act together,” says Washington, taking the artistic high road.
Lee, who wrote the film with Washington in mind, has a different perspective: ”Denzel has a huge female following, and he has never had a film to exploit that persona until now.”
Already eyebrows have been arched at the artistic risks. Matinee Idol meets Mr. Do the Right Thing? A black villain on stage in the land of Bensonhurst?
”I`m asked that all the time,” Washington says. ”People say, `You`re the guy that`s gonna carry the torch for history.` But I`m not that guy. I just want to do the things that I want to do.”
Unlike many actors who wear their neurosis on their sleeve, Washington`s trip wires are hard to find. He seems most comfortable playing the affable regular guy who just wants to spend time with the wife and kids. Venture too close-his childhood in New York; his wife, singer Pauletta Pearson; their two small children and their life in Los Angeles; or even the acting technique he used to squeeze out that million dollar tear in the infamous whipping scene in ”Glory”-and Washington literally picks up his bat: ”Come on, let`s talk about something else.”
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Just behind New York`s white marbled Lincoln Center complex, the city`s de facto cultural headquarters, sits Fordham University. It is an angular, almost characterless series of buildings in Columbus Circle, a typically urban campus visible from the windows of the 12th-floor apartment belonging to Robinson Stone, a retired actor and drama professor and one of Washington`s earliest mentors.
”Oh, God, he was thrilling even then,” says Stone, settling into an armchair in front of that window to recall one of his favorite students from nearly 20 years earlier.
”Denzel was from the Bronx campus-not even a theater major-and he got the lead in the school production of `Othello.` He was easily the best Othello I had ever seen, and I had seen Paul Robeson play it. I remember Jose Ferrer came to look at it. He and I agreed that Denzel had a brillant career ahead of him. He played Othello with so much majesty and beauty but also rage and hate that I dragged agents to come and see it.”
Mention this story to Washington and the actor is incredulous.
”You went and saw Bob? You went up to 12-U? What`d he say? He probably had lousy things to say. `Othello` wasn`t that great. I will call him tonight; I haven`t spoken to him in a long time and he deserves better than that. He used to talk to me about me and how it was going to be when I was out of college, right, this old guy. He once wrote me this recommendation. It was like, whoa.”
The reaction is typical Washington, a jumble of contradictory emotions-pride and humility, mistrust and appreciation-packaged in his Regular Joe affability. He has his feet on the coffetable, baseball cap still jammed tight, talking fast, too fast.
”Who else you talk to; who else you got on that list,” he says, poking the interviewer`s chair with the bat.
”You talk to Spike? Ed Zwick? What`d they say?”
Robert Townsend, who has known Washington from their early days kicking around Off Broadway, says:
”Denzel`s got a lot of different sides. He`s into his family and he`s really into his work. He is quiet and he can also get really stupid-he`s a closet comedian. I can say that because I know the man. There are a lot of talented guys, but what sets Denzel apart is his commitment. He is running a race and he knows how to pace himself. The fact that he is black is further down the totem pole.”
”He`s a method actor, just attacks the role,” says Lee. ”For `Mo`
Better Blues` he learned to the play the trumpet, and it never left his hand.”
”Mo` Better Blues” is one of Lee`s least overtly political films in its exploration of racial issues. Like his early comedy, ”She`s Gotta Have It,” ”Mo` Better Blues” traffics more in sexual politics than racial questions.
Director Lee characterizes this latest work as his attempt to set the record straight about black jazz musicians:
”Anybody can relate to this subject matter, but jazz is definitely black culture and I wanted to make a jazz film that wasn`t about an alcoholic or heroin addict. Not to take away anything from Clint Eastwood or Bertrand Tavernier, but this film is my direct reaction to having seen `Bird` and
`Round Midnight.` This is my attempt to portray the jazz scene today as truthfully as possible.”
Washington smiles and says: ”I don`t have as much of an agenda as Spike does. I`m not trying to move people in any area; it`s just the movie business you know. There has been no plan (to my career). I am attracted to certain parts, and I`ve learned a lot from them, about history, culture, myself, how the world views black people and how black people view the world.”
But it wasn`t until ”Mo` Better Blues,” he concedes, ”that I ever made a film about contemporary black American life, and I have lived one.”
– – –
He was born December 1954 in Mount Vernon, N.Y., the middle son of a minister and a beautician-a nontheatrical, religious, even strict, middle-class household headed by a man who ”would never drink or smoke or swear and who was steeped in spirituality,” recalls Washington about his father.
”He worked two jobs and on Sunday he preached. He did that for years, both jobs. Yeah, we lived in a house.”
By the time Washington was 14, his parents had divorced, a rupture that Washington says caused him to ”not trust anybody. I always say, `I`ll pay to see once.` If I get burned, well I don`t make that mistake again.”
The family scattered a bit, and Washington was sent away to a private academy in upstate New York.
At camp in Lakeville, Conn., Washington took his first turn on stage during a camp talent show.
”Some of the other counselors told me, `You`re really a natural on stage,”` he says. That first audience response, coupled with an acting workshop he took at Fordham, propelled him toward his long-shot tryout for the school production of Eugene O`Neill`s ”Emperor Jones.” Over several theater majors, Washington snared the lead; the lead in ”Othello” soon followed.
He worked in Off-Broadway theaters, primarily at the New Federal Theater and with the Negro Ensemble Company. He originated the role of Pvt. Peterson in Charles Fuller`s Pulitzer Prize winning drama, ”A Soldier`s Play.”
During the road tour of ”A Soldier`s Play” Washington landed the role of Phillip Chandler on the TV series, ”St. Elsewhere.” That ground-breaking ensemble series saw Washington as one of the lesser-sung players in a cast that featured Mark Harmon, Ed Begley Jr. and comedian Howie Mandel.
By 1985, Richard Attenborough was calling. After auditioning hundreds of African actors, the British director chose Washington to play the role of the martyred South African leader, Steve Biko.
”Casting Steve Biko was difficult,” Attenborough says now. ”We had to have a man of charm, of erudition, of intellect, of perception who was humorous, relaxed yet confident. Fortunately, we found him in Denzel.”
For Washington, ”Cry Freedom,” which was filmed in Zimbabwe, where the actor said he felt strangely at home, was an important step toward his next major historical/political role: Trip, the defiant Civil War slave turned soldier in ”Glory.”
”When we were making `Glory,` people kept asking me, `Why are you so angry?”` the actor says when asked about that career-making performance.
”I haven`t been through anything like that, but I`ve read about it. I`ve studied the history, and that`s enough to make you angry. How can I be 35 and never been taught about black soldiers being a part of the Civil War. That`s something to ask: How can that happen?”
To prepare for the role, Washington says he researched several historical records and period accounts, including a handful of slave diaries. One of those, ”Bullwhip Days,” he says, ”became my bible,” a record of ”whole generations, hundreds of years in this country when the lives of black people were just wasted.
”I can`t define now what I was doing during the whipping scene. It might have been a lot of history there that day. I believe that, too: the spiritual connection with past souls. That`s what I was trying to tap into for that scene. I`d read about defiant slaves, the guys who refused to give in. You don`t hear about them much.
”There is one story of this slave, a defiant man who refused to be broken, who was made to fight the top slave of a rival plantation. He killed him, and they made him carry his body around tied to his back, made him work in the fields with this dead man rotting on his back. It started to rot his own flesh, sleeping with that body in a little hut. Even the other slaves were telling him to give in. But he didn`t, and he died.”
For the first time in the hour there is a silence in the room.
”That`s not gross,” Washington says with frightening stillness.
”That`s American history. That`s not gross. That`s American history.”
