The scene Denzel Washington refused to shoot
As one of the biggest stars and best actors in the industry, Denzel Washington has more than earned the right to be involved in the creative process of his movies. Things weren’t quite the same in the early 1990s as they are now, though, not that it prevented him from putting his foot down on one occasion.
While Washington already had an Academy Award under his belt after winning ‘Best Supporting Actor’ for 1989’s Glory, he wasn’t quite yet at the level where he had his unfiltered pick of the projects. A third Oscar nomination for Malcolm X would elevate his star to another level in 1992 before The Pelican Brief gave him the biggest box office hit of his career to date the following year to send it soaring even higher.
Partnering Washington up with Julia Roberts in a labyrinthine legal thriller was always destined to strike gold, with Alan J. Pakula’s film hauling in almost $200million from cinemas. Putting two of Hollywood’s brightest talents together and letting the sparks fly was about as guaranteed a hit as any, but some viewers were left disappointed at the lack of romance.
Despite Washington’s Gray Grantham and Roberts’ Darby Shaw creating plenty of sizzling chemistry, their feelings for each other never reached romantic levels. As the latter would tell Newsweek, that was a decision made entirely by her co-star. “I have taken so much shit over the years about not kissing Denzel in that film,” she said. “Don’t I have a pulse? Of course I wanted to kiss Denzel. It was his idea to take the damn scenes out.”
The leading man’s decision to avoid on-screen kissing with Roberts stemmed from a desire to avoid alienating a segment of his audience. This choice was influenced by an incident during a test screening of 1989’s The Mighty Quinn, where a kiss between his character and Mimi Rogers’ character resulted in loud booing from Black women in the audience.
As a result, he wasn’t interested in locking lips with Roberts in The Pelican Brief out of respect. “Black women are not often seen as objects of desire on film,” he said. “They have always been my core audience”. Ironically, it was Roberts who pushed for Washington to be hired for the film in the first place, only for her to miss out on the opportunity of a kiss, one that she ended up “taking so much shit” for in the years that followed.
According to Washington, author Grisham wasn’t too thrilled about his casting after hinting how “I wasn’t what he wanted, and that was made clear,” but Roberts ended up getting exactly who she wanted to spar opposite, even if things stayed strictly platonic between the two protagonists of The Pelican Brief much to her chagrin.
