Page 51 - My FlipBook 1

use his sociology degree from Morehouse. He could tions like ‘Is this real?’ I guess he had to check it with ington as a kid. It came out when he was a first
coach. He’d be great! his agents to make sure it was real, and he was happy grader, but his parents didn’t let him watch it until
“What he told me . . . it scared the hell out of me,” for me, and then he said exactly what I was going he was twelve. And now here he was: a man in his
Washington says, tugging on the gold chain around to do anyway, but ‘As soon as this is over, you gotta thirties sitting in the seat his dad had sat in, a seat
his neck. It’s the same one his uncle wore before go learn. You gotta go learn how to do this.’ ” he’d avoided for decades, with his father staring
he died. “He was right. I could be a coach, I could Washington flew back and forth between filming down his neck.
be a teacher, I could do that. But it scared me in Miami and New York, where he took a scene- “That’s when it hit me: ‘Okay, if I mess this up,
because that means you’ve been running from this. study class on Thursday nights at HB Studio in down- my career is basically over,’ ” he says with a hint of
You use football as an excuse. You really wanted town Manhattan. When he was assigned a scene a smile at the memory of it. “It hit there a little bit,
to do this even before football. It just so happened from the Amiri Baraka play Dutchman, he called I got to say. The pressure hit for a moment, for those
football kept working for you. But if you go and be another family friend for guidance. That summer, two hours, and then I was back. I was okay after.”
a teacher, or work in the business field, you will veteran actor Stephen McKinley Henderson was on When Washington talks about his first steps into
forever regret this. That’s what was scaring me.” Broadway with Washington’s father in A Raisin in the industry, it’s clear how heavily it all weighed
On his birthday, he’d been sending most of his the Sun, a few dozen blocks up from his acting class. on him then. But you get the sense he’s come out
calls to voicemail. But a family friend, agent Henderson was friends with Baraka and had both on the other side. There’s a distance in his voice
Andrew Finkelstein, kept calling. Finkelstein had starred in and directed the play, so a couple times and a sense of pride—almost like he’s discussing
heard from casting director Sheila Jaffe, who a week, he’d head downtown to help Washington another person.
remembered reading somewhere that one of and his scene partner with the class assignment. “Every year that I see him, he’s more and more
Denzel’s sons played football, and she was won- When Henderson went back up to Broadway, comfortable with himself and he’s just excited for
dering if he was still playing—or if just maybe he’d Denzel wanted updates. what’s to come . . . . He’s just blossomed, honestly,
be interested in talking about this role she had on “‘ Well, how’s it going, man? How’s it going? Does in the last five years,” says Zoë Kravitz, who has
an HBO show about pro football players? the guy got any chops? . . . I don’t want to encour- been friends with Washington for years. Each New
The show was Ballers, and Jaffe had seen more age him if he . . . ’ ” Henderson remembers Denzel Year’s Eve, their families travel together for a vaca-
than a hundred men for the role of Ricky Jerret— wanting to know. “And I said, ‘Well, man, I’ve got tion, and as someone who knows what it’s like to
former college ballplayers, actors. He was envi- to tell you, he’s got some chops. He does. He defi- be the child of icons (her mother is Lisa Bonet, and
sioned as a linebacker, but at this point, she’d nitely does.’ John David understood acting is not her father is Lenny Kravitz) and to find her own
broadened her search: Anyone who could under- so much pretending as really doing and really being success, she says, “I always say it kind of evens
stand this character, that balance of cocky and there with the other person. When he got it phil- itself out. You know what I mean? I wouldn’t say
obnoxious and vulnerable, would do. Calling osophically, he was off to the races. That was it. He it’s harder. You get into a room earlier, easier; you
Finkelstein was a Hail Mary. was off to the races.” get an agent easier; there are things about it that
“Now, granted, I’m on a heavy medication,” are definitely easier. But then you have people say-
Washington says. “I’m feeling very, very loosey- ing, ‘This person doesn’t deserve to be here,’ which
goosey, if you will. I don’t feel the most confident. C H A P T E R F O U R just doesn’t feel good and can’t help your confi-
I’m pretty flammable at this point. I just felt very dence. And then you have someone saying, ‘Oh,
exposed. And he sends the script and I read it, and He was in a hotel room when the phone buzzed. this person isn’t as good as their parent.’ ”
I’m like, well, ‘This is cool.’ ” “Yo, this is Spike, call me.” Fellow actor and friend Regina King says, “I won’t
If he was going to do acting, though, he wanted Spike Lee has known Washington since he was name any particular actors, but sometimes you’ll
to do it right—take acting classes, learn the craft. born. But it’s not as if they were on texting terms see a career take off quickly and it feels like it’s tak-
Finkelstein had a different idea: Just go to the audi- when Washington got that message while in Cincin- ing off quickly because of hype. With John David,
tion. Get used to rejection. Then start your classes. nati filming the 2018 movie The Old Man & the Gun. it’s taken off quickly because he’s really good, and
Washington told only his mom he was going out Anyway, Lee said there was this book he wanted because he studies the art form, and because he
for the role, and the two of them got to work. They Washington to read. It was the true story of Ron really is submerging himself into the character.”
went over lines, and she quizzed him over meals. Stallworth, an African-American police officer who 2018 saw the release of BlacKkKlansman, along
“I was just so pleased that he had something infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s. Washing- with Monsters and Men, in which Washington plays
that would take his mind off his injury,” Pauletta ton read the book, not quite understanding why. a police officer whose colleague shoots and kills a
says. She couldn’t help but recognize how happy Did Lee just want his opinion on it? A couple days black man. Both characters are big departures from
it made him. later, he called the director back. the sitcommy Ricky Jerret. Washington’s BlacKk-
Washington couldn’t drive because of the boot Washington: “This is incredible.” Klansman character, Stallworth, is at turns earnest
on his foot, so Pauletta dropped him off at the audi- Lee: “So, you do like it?” and snarky as he sits for long phone conversations
tion and he hobbled up the steps, still loopy from Washington: “Yes!” with Topher Grace’s David Duke. In Monsters and
pain meds. Nearly a dozen auditions later, Wash- Lee: “All right, see you this summer.” Men, his Dennis Williams is a serious family man
ington got the role. It wasn’t until then that he told Lee told Washington he couldn’t tell anyone— who is trying as hard as he can to turn a blind
his dad he was going to be an actor. not even his agent—until the script was done. But eye to the racism of his fellow cops out of self-
“There was disbelief,” Washington says. The reac- just like with Ballers, Washington told his mom. preservation. Watching himself up there, seeing
tion couldn’t have been further from that celebra- In one of the first table reads, in Lee’s office, he his character lie about his colleagues to protect his
tion when he was signed by the NFL years earlier. sat with costars Adam Driver and Topher Grace son and wife, Washington was disturbed. He
His dad “kept asking questions like ‘For HBO? Like to his left. Behind him hung an oversize poster for remembered that his acting teacher at HB Studio
Home Box Office Entertainment? Who? Really? But Mo’ Better Blues, of all movies. The fictional story had taught him never to judge the actions of your
what’s it called? The Rock?’ He just kept asking ques- of a jazz trumpeter had a certain mystique to Wash- character. And here he was, furious at Williams as

51 SUMMER 2020