"Do what you've got to do so that you can do what you want to do. It doesn't work the other way around." Denzel Washington was not reading from a script, but explicating his own morals, wisdom and friendly demeanor while talking about his new film, The Great Debaters.
Washington is considered by many to be one of today's finest and most versatile actors, portraying immoral thugs, inspiring coaches and everything in between.
What many do not know him for is his directing, even though his directorial debut Antwone Fisher garnered a fair amount of praise and recognition. The Great Debaters, which came out over the holiday season and is based on true events, follows the lives of students at an all black college in Texas that form a debate team and travel to compete against Harvard in the national championship. Washington, who plays Melvin B. Tolson, the debate team's coach, saw the movie as "the little train that could" that "affected [him] on an emotional level." When asked to contrast Debaters to his other recent release American Gangster, Washington said: "there's no Frank Lucas in my Mel Tolston."
He did reveal that his son talked him into doing Gangster and his Oscar-winning turn in Training Day.
"I can blame both of those on him," Washington said.
Washington, who first read the script four years ago, talked at length about selling a debate team period piece to the studios. He said he urged the producers and actors to "think of this [the film] as a sports movie" and explained that debate "was entertainment in those days. You know, before television." Washington mentioned a few run-ins with The Weinstein Company, which produced the film. He revealed that he did not want to star in the film, but agreed to in order to get the money.
"The studio said, 'Well, if you're not in the film, your budget is this. If you're in the film, this is your budget,'"
Oprah Winfrey, who first discovered the script, was a co-producer on the film and was "there when you need[ed] her," despite her busy schedule.
"It was her baby long before it was mine," he said.
Washington, who felt much more prepared to direct after his experience with Fisher, expressed that directing the film was "tiresome.... Really, I play all the parts in the development process." He shared his attitude toward directing.
"You know I always call it the cup maker. If I'm making a cup, I don't walk around while I'm making it and ask everybody's opinion on what they think I should do. So I just make the movie. You know people have their opinions about it and I don't need to deflect anything. I'm a positive person," he said.
When Washington learned that he was speaking to a Duke student, he mentioned that his wife grew up in North Carolina. For a time, the Duke family sponsored her because of her musical abilities. Moreover, he said his father-in-law, a former educator in North Carolina, was an inspiration for the film.
"He's long gone now... but I thought of men like him in making this film," Washington said.
The Great Debaters, which was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Drama, has been receiving some Oscar buzz. Washington, a winner of two Academy Awards, appreciates the buzz but expressed that, "for me the joy is making the film, and now, finding out that people are responding." When asked about possible critics of the film, Washington's voice took on a more commanding tone.
"Those who can, do. Those who can't, criticize those who can," he said.
When asked about the future, Washington mentioned an upcoming project with John Travolta and Man on Fire director Tony Scott. As for directing again, Washington said that he had "no plans to direct another film right now" and is "going back in front of the camera" for the next few years.
Washington, who came across just as moral as many of his on-screen characters, had advice to dispense to college students.
"Don't wait until the eleventh hour, which I know you guys probably do, which of course I did too," he said. "If you operate in fear, you'll be paralyzed."
Though he said his leaves his characters at the studio, Washington sounded more like Tolson than an actor when asked about race, a significant aspect of the film.
"You know when you look back at four hundred years or three hundred years of slavery and five years or ten years of legislation, everything is not going to be just perfect... in my generation or your generation. But we do have to understand our place in history and that we have to keep fighting and keep moving forward... something that I tried to instill in the film is I always show young people and how it affected kids because racism is taught - hatred is taught. Do you know what I mean? Ignorance is taught. You're not born ignorant. It takes education. It does."
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