The filmmaker that compared Denzel Washington to a prized motor: “It was like discovering a Ferrari”
There’s something very special about Denzel Washington. A true master of the screen and stage, admired universally by his fellow actors and directors, Washington’s legacy as an icon of American cinema speaks for itself, so much so that he sits proudly in the garage of Hollywood like a prized, shining Ferrari.
Looking back at Washington’s career, we find signifiers of his extraordinary talent. With two Academy Awards, a Tony and the AFI Life Achievement Award to his name, as well as notable performances in the likes of Glory,Training Day, Malcolm X, Philadelphia and Man on Fire, Washington is an actor destined to live eternally through his works.
Naturally, the New York-born star has been fortunate enough to collaborate with some of the most notable filmmakers in the movie industry. For instance, he’s worked alongside Antoine Fuqua, Spike Lee, Robert Zemeckis, Joel Coen, Jonathan Demme and Ridley Scott, each of whom has held him in the highest esteem.
Another director who has a clear love for Washington is Edward Zwick, who cast the actor in the 1989 historical war drama Glory. Speaking with IndieWire about working with Washington, Zwick once noted, “It was like discovering a Ferrari. And all you have to do is just put your hand on the steering wheel and go like this, and the car will go screaming around the corner.”
“His abilities to be present, and to be creative in a moment, so exceeded anybody I’d ever worked with,” Zwick added. Glory, also starring Cary Elwes, Matthew Broderick and Morgan Freeman, tells of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, one of the first in the Union Army to be made up of African-Americans, and their efforts at the Second Battle of Fort Wagner.
According to Zwick, there were a number of occasions during the making of Glory where Washington proved his worth, taking on lines and scenes that other, lesser actors might have struggled with. “He saved my ass countless times with scenes that wouldn’t have worked,” the director explained. “The number of times that I recall him saying to me, ‘I can act those words.’”
Zwick went on to compare Washington to another of his actors, Tom Cruise, who had worked with the director on the 2003 epic period action movie The Last Samurai. “His instincts about scripts, like Tom Cruise’s — there are reasons why these guys have careers with that kind of longevity,” Zwick said. “It’s not because of some play of light and shadow on their face.”
Prominent actors like Cruise and Washington are, for Zwick, just as “smart and gifted as any director or any writer.” The Blood Diamond and Defiance filmmaker admitted that even though such actors do not speak the same kind of “language” as someone in the director’s seat, to “ignore” how they feel about a given movie scene would be foolish.
Evidently, there are few actors to have assumed as high a reputation as Washington in the eye of Zwick. Indeed, Washington is something of a Ferrari performer, a man capable of delivering sleek and considered efforts, driving by smooth at one point, then revving up the engine into fury the next, though always with the control of a master. Sure enough, Washington is considered one of the all-time greats, and with good reason, so much so that he might even be thought of as something of a Rolls Royce, too.
