The movies Denzel Washington didn’t want to star in: “It was strictly to get the money”
As much as cinephiles may love to believe that artistic impulses always win out over cold, hard capitalism in the movie industry, that’s far from the truth. For instance, most actors who have worked in Hollywood for any length of time – even the ones at the top of the food chain – will admit that they have to play the game occasionally to put themselves in a position to make their passion projects. Denzel Washington, for example, has fallen victim to this system and once admitted to starring in two movies he had no desire to act in, purely to secure a bigger budget for the films he actually believed in.
OK, full disclosure: the films Washington acted in against his will were the very same as the projects he believed in. You see, like many actors interested in filmmaking beyond their role in front of the camera, Washington transitioned into directing at a certain point in his career. He has helmed four movies thus far: 2002’s Antwone Fisher, 2007’s The Great Debaters, 2016’s Fences, and 2021’s A Journal For Jordan. He starred in three of them, with A Journal For Jordan being the only one that doesn’t feature him on-screen – but ideally, he wouldn’t have appeared in the first two.
In 2007, Washington was asked why some directors who are also actors like to star in their films and others don’t. To the interviewer’s surprise, he bluntly replied, “It’s strictly business. I didn’t want to be in either film. It was strictly to get the money.” The Training Day star explained that he was offered two deals by the studios financing Antwone Fisher and The Great Debaters: the first was a budget for the film if he didn’t act in it, and the second was a budget if he did. Can you guess which budget was bigger?
Washington claimed that the studio knows it can play dirty pool with any actor who is desperate to see their vision realised as a director. “They sort of back you into a corner,” he explained. “They give you a budget they know you can’t make the movie for, and two or three years after you’ve been working on it, I said, ‘OK. I’ll play a small role in it.’ That still wasn’t enough money to make the kind of picture I wanted to make.”
So, at the core of the matter, Washington realised that he could stick to his guns and not star in either film, but that would have made it impossible to make the movie the way he wanted. By agreeing to star in it, though, he would receive a budget closer to the ideal number that would still force him to get creative, but at least it would mean the film could become a reality. It was a hard bargain, but he chose to play the game for those first two directorial efforts.
By the time it came to directing Fences, Washington realised it was a slightly different case than his first two pictures because that harrowing drama was an adaptation of a stage play he starred in. Finally, though, nearly 20 years after he made Antwone Fisher, he was able to simply concentrate on directing A Journal For Jordan – and it felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
“I prefer not being in the films,” Washington said yet again. “Early on, it had to do with me being able to raise the money to get the films made. Then, Fences, obviously, we had great success onstage, so that translated to film. But I enjoy being a more behind-the-scenes kind of guy.”
It will be interesting to see if Washington is forced to make that same bargain in any of his future directorial efforts. After all, he’s not a man to change his opinion lightly, so it wouldn’t be the least bit surprising if he still thinks the way he did in 2007 when he insisted, “I am not interested in being in the films I direct at all. Did I make that clear?”
