Page 47 - My FlipBook 1

THE INJURY THAT SET EVERYTHING IN MOTION Washington had heard stories about his parents
started with a violent pop. To demonstrate the meeting on the set of the TV movie Wilma and of
noise, John David Washington juts his two front his mom performing on the soundtrack of Philadel-
teeth toward his iPad and balances the screen with phia. And he remembers his dad coming home with
one hand. He scrapes the bottom of his teeth with a horn from the set of Mo’ Better Blues, “playing all
the nail of his thumb. Fliiiiick. the time, all the time.” There was the time his father
I’ve spent the past week talking with a dozen dyed his black hair a deep red and studied Islam to
or so of the actor’s family members, friends, and get into the character of Malcolm X for Spike Lee’s
colleagues. Under normal circumstances, I would eponymous 1992 film. Washington (father) and
spend many hours with Washington, over the Washington (son) walked down the streets of New
course of days, soaking up as much as possible York City in the summer of 1990 as the former
about this thirty-five-year-old who’s gone from rehearsed scenes from Richard III for a Shakespeare
NFL running-back hopeful to the world’s next festival. The younger Washington sat in the theater
great action star in just seven years. Because in Central Park along with hundreds of others watch-
we’re both stuck inside weeks into the COVID-19 ing his dad recite those same lines onstage, hang-
quarantine, we talk over Zoom. And I didn’t think ing on his every word. There was no one cooler than
I could tell the complete story of a man after just his father. No one who could perform this magic
a couple video chats, so I reached out to every- trick, acting, quite like him.
one I could to help me understand him. But It took Washington decades to start acting. And
no one has told me this story yet. The story of when he started, he did it in secret. Most of his fam-
the tendon. ily didn’t even know he was auditioning—until he’d
It was 2013, and he was training outside L. A., get- already landed Ballers, which went on to become
ting ready for a workout with the New York Giants. one of HBO’s most watched comedies.
After two years on the practice team for the St. Louis Somewhere along the way, he realized what it
Rams and a stint in Germany with the NFL Euro- meant to be the son of an acting legend, to have
pean league during the off-season, he was in the those hundreds of strangers in Central Park and
U. S. doing explosion drills when he felt that pop. millions around the world idolizing your father. It
He looked down to see something resembling a meant making new friends, only to have them ask
worm wriggling beneath the thin skin of his calf. for your dad’s autograph. It meant having people And
He knew it was his Achilles. And he knew his listen for your dad’s voice when you spoke, look when
football days were over. for his face in yours. So he pushed it down, focused
he
He’d worked so hard, through so many injuries, on football, where a helmet covered his face and
and now he was terrified about what would come where nobody could accuse him of getting any-
next. As a kid, he’d harbored dreams of acting, and thing because of his last name. started,
despite his dogged pursuit of a football career, And yet Washington, John David—the Washing-
the idea of becoming an actor was always in the ton we’re here to talk about today—will star in the
background. It was a constant push and pull. Now most anticipated movie of the summer: Christo-
that he could no longer play professionally, there pher Nolan’s top-secret and most ambitious proj-
was nothing stopping him. ect yet, Tenet. He’ll be playing a James Bond/Jason
“A part of me felt like it got shot and killed, it got Bourne–type character. The men who lead Nolan’s
assassinated. All of that was fear based, of not films are superstars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Christian
knowing if what I thought was my destiny, if I’m Bale, Hugh Jackman, Matthew McConaughey. And
even worthy enough to claim it,” he says. “It was Washington is coming off a Golden Globe nomina-
time to go up onstage.” tion for Lee’s BlacKkKlansman. He is now poised to
become a household name, someone instantly
THOSE EARLY YEARS IN A CAREER ARE RAW recognizable, Hollywood’s next great leading man.
and painful and embarrassing and thrilling and This is John David Washington’s moment.
magical as we begin to figure out what we’re good When we talk over Zoom in mid-April, he’s styled
at. We fail and falter, and then, if we’re lucky, we himself in gym shorts, a bandanna with white stars
start to succeed. But if you’re going into the fam- wrapped around his hair, and a long-sleeved black
ily business, the success comes with second- shirt with a sepia photo of his maternal great-
guessing and constant comparisons—there’s an grandmother silk-screened onto it. The entertain-
imaginary bar set before you even get started. Most ment industry, along with the rest of the world, he
of us would run like hell to avoid the shadow of our has ground to a halt. I ask if he’s working on any-
parents—and most of us don’t have Denzel Wash- thing in self-isolation, and he holds a red notebook did
ington as a father. Or Pauletta Washington, actress, up to the camera. That’s where he writes his lines,
it
singer, and pianist, as our mom. or motivations for whatever character he’s play-
in
secret.

47 SUMMER 2020