Film legend Denzel Washington has got the Bard bug bad, following his acclaimed screen performance, full of lethal menace, as the slasher Scot Macbeth.
Now, Washington has revealed that he has his eye on another great Shakespearean role: King Lear. And this time, he wants to play him on stage. ‘The L word!’ the actor roared.
‘That’s the good stuff. These are great parts — and the greatest challenge.’ He said that playing the ageing, troubled king was ‘absolutely something I want to do’.
And the two-time Oscar winner did not rule out the possibility of bringing Lear to London. Though he cautioned: ‘Yeah, but you’ve got to talk to the money people. I’m just an actor for hire.’
If he does play Lear, it would not happen until 2023, at the earliest, because he’s committed to a new film. ‘After all this high falutin’ Shakespeare, I’m doing The Equalizer 3. That’s showbiz,’ he said, laughing down the line from his home in Los Angeles (we were speaking over the telephone … old-school … no Zoom for Denzel).
After portraying Macbeth on screen, film legend Denzel Washington (pictured) has revealed that he has an eye on another Shakespearean role – King Lear – whom he wants to play on stage
Pictured: Denzel Washington as Macbeth and Frances McDormand as Lady Macbeth
The latest instalment in the film series in which Washington plays Robert McCall, a retired CIA assassin (it’s inspired by the tv series starring Edward Woodward in the 1980s), is ready to shoot in the autumn.
‘Mixing it up,’ as he described his varied projects, stops him from getting bored. At 67, he’s been trying to cut his film roles down from two to one a year.
‘I’m doing more, but acting less,’ he said, explaining that these days he spends more time directing (he was behind the camera on A Journal For Jordan, starring Michael B. Jordan, which is out now), and producing.
He’s planning to produce a film version of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, to star Samuel L. Jackson — and his son, John David Washington — after it has had a run on Broadway, where it’s due to open this autumn. (It was delayed from 2021.)
LaTanya Richardson, Jackson’s wife, will direct the show on stage.
Washington has said he spends more time behind the camera directing these days than acting
Washington has been charged by Wilson’s estate to make films from the playwright’s cycle of ten plays about the black experience in 20th-century America. He’s already made Fences; and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. The Piano Lesson will shoot, if everything stays on schedule, sometime next year.
But Washington ruled out doing the ‘murder movie’ — as Macbeth director Joel Coen termed his magnificently shot, black and white version of the Scottish play, which also starred his missus Frances McDormand as Lady Macbeth — on the boards.
‘I felt like I lived it already,’ he said, ‘so I would rather start on stage with Lear, and really live it — and then hopefully make a film of that one day.’
Coen’s rigorous preparations for the film ‘were like putting it up as a play’. Which, as a classically-trained actor, he enjoyed; but would not necessarily want to go through again.
Eight months before filming started, he joined McDormand and Coen for a rigorous read-through; five months after that, the full company joined in and began work on it.
Denzel described McDormand as ‘a force of nature’, adding that when ‘you work with Fran, sparks fly — and it’s exciting’.
Eight months before Macbeth filming started, Washington joined McDormand and Coen for a rigorous read-through; five months after that, the full company joined in and began work on it
The murderous couple they play are older than usual interpretations. ‘It just raises the stakes,’ Washington argued. ‘They don’t have time to waste, literally.
And things have changed, since the Bard penned the play. ‘It’s 400 years ago — and 40 was the new 60. Or is it 40 was the old 60? Whatever! Anyway, people didn’t expect to make it to 60,’ he said.
Washington was full of admiration for the film’s supporting cast, which included many actors from our shores.
He cited Kathryn Hunter, who plays all three witches; Bertie Carvel as Banquo; Alex Hassell as Ross; and Harry Melling as Malcolm. ‘The British kids were all bringing it,’ he marvelled.
All schooled in the classics, ‘they knew how to rinse the words around in their mouths’, as he put it, to make them accessible.
Coen (wisely) told them not to worry about accents, ‘as long as there was no stick-up-the-butt acting’, Washington recalled, breaking into a hammy, declaratory style of speaking. ‘Oh, my Lo-wd!’
He recalled working on Kenneth Branagh’s 1993 film version of Much Ado About Nothing; and there was an older actor in the cast, more than likely Edward Jewesbury, who would ham it up off camera, giving his ‘Irving’ — a reference to Victorian actor-manager Henry Irving.
‘Sure, they’re precious words,’ he continued, of Shakespeare’s lines, but they have to be spoken in a style that modern audiences can follow.
WATCH OUT FOR…
Kerry Ellis, who has been cast as Renee Sweeney, the evangelist who gets a kick out of champagne, in the new touring version of director and choreographer Kathleen Marshall’s delicious production of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes.
Bonnie Langford, Dennis Lawson and Simon Callow will take over roles played respectively by Felicity Kendal, Robert Lindsay and Gary Wilmot in last year’s cork-popping sensation at the Barbican, that saw Broadway’s Sutton Foster make her London debut as Reno.
New cast of Anything Goes: Simon Callow, Kerry Ellis, Denis Lawson and Bonnie Langford
Samuel Edwards, Nicole-Lily Baisden, Haydn Oakley and comic wonder Carly Mercedes Dyer will reprise their 2021 roles with the new company.
The tour begins at Bristol Hippodrome on April 11, then visits Liverpool Empire, Edinburgh Festival Theatre and the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, before dropping anchor once more at the Barbican, where it will run from July 15 until September 3.
Awards season puzzlers. Such as the fact that Nicole Kidman, Olivia Colman, Kirsten Dunst, Kristen Stewart — and Denzel Washington! — did not receive Bafta acting nominations yesterday. And what about Steven Spielberg, who was not cited in the best director category for West Side Story?
I’ve sat on enough awards panels to know that these aren’t called snubs. I remember Emma Thompson once noting that movies and performances shouldn’t be defined by trophies.
West Side Story’s Ariana DeBose (centre) has been nominated for a Bafta in the Best Supporting Actress category for her role as Anita in Steven Spielberg’s musical remake
She’s right — but I am thrilled, nonetheless, that Ariana DeBose and Mike Faist, from West Side Story, were recognised.
I was an early champion of both Joanna Scanlan in After Love and Emilia Jones (Coda), who received best actress nods — as did Lady Gaga, for her performance (and a half!) in House Of Gucci.
I’m also pleased for Jessie Buckley, Caitriona Balfe, Ann Dowd, Aunjanue Ellis and Ruth Negga, who join DeBose in the best supporting actress race. That’s a tough category. Much more exciting than last year!
