“That accent was awful”: Denzel Washington’s one and only British movie
Even though he’s undeniably one of the greatest actors of all time, a living legend, and still reigning as one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars in his 70s, there are some things that even Denzel Washington can’t do to an acceptable, or sometimes even convincing, level.
We are, of course, talking about the scourge of many thespians, whether they’re jobbing novices performing off-off-Broadway plays, or A-listers with a cabinet full of awards: accents. Washington hasn’t used a brogue other than his own onscreen for over 30 years, and he’s vowed never to do it again.
There’s obviously an exception to the rule, with Washington earning an Academy Award nomination for playing the South African, Steve Biko, in Cry Freedom, but his Caribbean affectations in The Mighty Quinn were hardly on the same level. Much to his own chagrin, in hindsight, he even played a cockney once.
As impossible as it seems now to imagine the two-time Academy Award-winning legend talking about heading up the old apple and pears, his fifth feature-length outing in 1984’s For Queen and Country was the first and still only British production of his entire storied career.
A joint venture between Working Title and Zenith Productions, two British companies, the drama was directed by a Brit, shot in and around East London, and starred Washington as a British paratrooper who struggles to reintegrate himself into society after being discharged from the military in the face of racism, corruption, crime, and poverty on the streets and in the businesses of the city.
It wasn’t a great showcase for an actor of his talents, especially in his first post-Cry Freedom release, and rewatching it four decades later, it doesn’t get any stranger or less difficult to suspend disbelief when you know you’re watching Denzel Washington trying his best not mangle such a distinctive accent, one that few American performers have ever been able to truly master.
The way Hollywood tends to work is that when actors are cast in period pieces, they adopt a British accent as the default setting. However, Washington remained distinctly American in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II, and he had an incredibly valid reason for refusing to join in, citing For Queen and Country as the example.
“That’s the reason I didn’t use an accent on this film,” he explained to On Demand. “I was terrible in that. That accent was awful.” He was being both honest and correct, and at no point in the intervening years has he even contemplated trying to sound like a United Kingdom native again, because he realised back in the late ’80s that it was beyond his grasp.
For Queen and Country also taught him the important lesson of never drinking on set, another tip he picked up on the film that he’s used ever since, and his overriding memory of the shoot is one that plenty of American actors who’ve pitched up across the pond for a shoot can sympathise with: “It was freezing cold.”
