The role Denzel Washington called his greatest: “It was my favourite part”
Ask ten different Denzel Washington fans what they consider his best role, and you’ll likely get ten completely different answers. After all, the A-lister’s career is chock-full of iconic parts in incredible movies, from Private Silas Trip in Glory to Malcolm X, and from Frank Lucas in American Gangster to John Creasy in Man on Fire. In truth, Washington’s leading man charisma and powerful screen presence will always captivate audiences worldwide, no matter his role.
When Washington first rose to fame in the late 1980s and ’90s, he did it while essentially playing morally upstanding folks. Sure, some of his roles had more nuance and complexity to them, such as the homophobic lawyer Joe Miller in Philadelphia and the convicted felon Jake Shuttlesworth in He Got Game, but by and large, Washington wasn’t playing outright villains in this period.
The longer Washington kept making movies like The Preacher’s Wife, Courage Under Fire, and Crimson Tide, the more it started to rankle him that he was never considered for the antagonist roles. So, when a script came across his desk in 2000 about a corrupt police officer leading a young trainee through the first day from hell, he knew this was the villainous part he’d been craving. He became hellbent on playing Detective Alonzo Harris in Antoine Fuqua’s Training Day because it would finally allow him to cut loose with all his darkest impulses on-screen.
“I’ve done 30 pictures and this is the first time I’ve played a truly evil character,” Washington admitted in 2002. “It’s not for want of trying. It’s just that no one has ever asked me to play a bad guy before. That’s not how Hollywood perceives me.“
Perhaps it was because Washington had 30 films’ worth of pent-up villainy itching to get out of him, or maybe it was because audiences were knocked for six seeing him play such a gleefully malevolent character. Whatever the case, witnessing Washington portray Harris’s powder keg of charisma, cunning, and ruthlessness was genuinely thrilling, and the character quickly became one of the star’s most beloved. He described the dirty cop as “an arrogant thief, liar, killer and egomaniac. He’s a sick, sick man who has no heart,” and quipped, “I’ve known for a while now that I’ve wanted to play someone like Harris!”
Overall, the magic of a character like Harris is that he was as exciting for Washington to play as he was for audiences to watch. This excitement, of course, brought Washington all the way to the Academy Awards to accept the honour of the ‘Best Actor’ Oscar for his scintillating performance, which was vindication for his insistence on finally turning to the dark side. There was always an air of menace and unpredictability to Harris, and being the bad guy allowed Washington to swing for the fences in a way he’d never experienced before.
“It’s a huge honour and privilege to play real-life heroes,” he insisted, “but there is a different kind of excitement and reward for an actor in playing a villain. I have to admit I had a lot of fun playing Harris in Training Day.” With all this in mind, it’s no wonder Washington told Blackfilm in 2006, “People like the bad guy. I do. I enjoyed Training Day. It was my favourite part.”
