The director Denzel Washington called “one of the greatest”
Any actor who plans to step behind the camera and direct would be foolish not to pick the brains of the filmmakers they work with during their career, and as one of the biggest stars of the modern era, Denzel Washington has collaborated with plenty of them.
The two-time Academy Award winner might not be anywhere near as prolific wielding the megaphone as many of his contemporaries who pull double duty, but being in such close proximity to so many greats over his decades in the spotlight has nonetheless given him an impressive education on what it takes to succeed.
Among the luminaries Washington has collaborated with over the years are powerhouse siblings Ridley and Tony Scott on multiple occasions apiece, as well as Spike Lee, Jonathan Demme, Edward Zwick, Philip Noyce, and Robert Zemeckis, to name just a small few. All wonderful directors in their own right, but not the ones singled out for specific praise.
Although Washington was hardly a complete stranger to the works of William Shakespeare having played Don Pedro in Kenneth Branagh’s 1993 adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing, that was his only dalliance with the Bard until he played the lead role in Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth.
To ensure he did justice to the material, the actor refused to watch any previous stage or screen performances of the production, instead relying on his director and an intense four-week rehearsal process. The results can’t be faulted, with the end result widespread critical acclaim and an Oscar nomination for ‘Best Actor’.
Washington’s next port of call after The Tragedy of Macbeth was to co-produce and direct A Journal for Jordan, and with the experience of working with Coen so fresh in his mind at the time, he admitted to Fox that coming off a “masterclass” allowed him to “steal from the best” when he moved onto his next project.
Not to say that the underwhelming A Journal for Jordan was Coen-esque in any way, but Washington had just worked with somebody he described as “one of the greatest directors” around, stating that he had witnessed an auteur working at the top of their game right in front of his very eyes inspired him to raise his own directorial game.
He also named Paul Thomas Anderson and Steve McQueen as people he’d spoken to as he continued his quest to carry on “learning from the best” and applying it to his own work as a filmmaker, which makes for quite the education. Washington arguably hasn’t yet reached the heights behind the camera as he has in front of it, but sitting under the learning tree of Coen – responsible for several of the greatest movies of the last 40 years – isn’t a bad way to try and get better.
