Brave new world
Veteran Oscar-winning actor tackles the unexpected with Roman J. Israel, Esq.
Denzel Washington, 62 years old and a seven-time Oscar nominee, is still trying to get better.
In Dan Gilroy’s film Roman J. Israel, Esq., Washington has challenged himself with one of his most complicated and singular roles. The title character (played by Washington) is a veteran activist attorney. For an actor whose most powerful performances (Malcolm X, Glory, Training Day) have been monuments of strength, Israel is an oddity — a loping, rumpled, anti-social loner whom Gilroy and Washington say has Asperger syndrome. But Israel, along with many of Washington’s more recent roles, stretches the actor in new directions.
QYou’ve compared Roman to “Cornel West on the spectrum.”
ACornel is brilliant and different. I don’t know if he’s on the spectrum, but who cares. He’s just bright and articulate and down for the cause, and there’s a lot of that in Roman.
QWhere did Roman’s walk come from?
AI did a lot of research on the spectrum. In some people, it talked about a lack of co-ordination — in some people, not everyone. I was attracted to that. It was something I could physicalize. I forget how I actually got to it, but I decided to wear shoes a couple of sizes too big. It changed everything. It changed the way I walked, just trying to keep them on.
QDo you often start with something like that?
AI like to get the shoes sooner than later. It gets the ball rolling.
QYou had a close brush with Dan Gilroy’s brother, Tony, whose Michael Clayton you passed on.
AYeah, made a mistake there! It worked out all right, though, for Tony. And for George (Clooney).
QDid you have a feeling of starting a new chapter after Fences? You spent years performing that on Broadway and directing the film adaptation.
AIncreasingly, I’m only going to do what I want to do, professionally. So I don’t know what I’m going to do next. Film-wise, I don’t. I do on the stage. (Washington will headline a revival of Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh on Broadway.) And that’s OK. Take my time. The time I have left and the opportunities that I have left, I understand that that’s finite. How can I be the best that I can be? And what interests me? Where’s the new territory?
QThis year marks the 25th anniversary of Malcolm X. Like him, you’re the son of a preacher. Do you feel as though you’ve followed in your father’s footsteps at all?
AFor a time, it sent me in another direction. That can be a pattern for preacher’s son. I had to go to church, so it wasn’t fun. I didn’t know anything different. Being a minister’s son, having grown up in the church and learned the cadence, it was probably easier to play that part. I had some idea of different rhythms.
QI suspect you’d be good at the pulpit.
AWell, it’s not performancebased if you mean what you say. And you better mean what you say. My father did. He believed it with every fibre of his being. He was a man of God and we share that. For him, the pulpit was wherever he was. My father was a minister and my mother owned a beauty shop. So that seems like perfect breeding ground for an actor. That covers a lot.