In Denzel Washington’s dreams, he finds himself stuck in a very unusual predicament. Though the Academy-Award-winning actor has personified the trials of humanity throughout his lengthy career in the movie business, in his own imagination and his new film, Flight, the sky deploys a bizarre limitation.
“I have a flying dream, I’ve had for most of my life,” the 57-year-old actor tells theGrio at a press conference for the film, in theaters today. “Somehow, I always end up near a city, and I go underneath bridges – like there are these low bridges. They’ll either be over a train, kind of like monorail trains, or water – a small body of water. And I would just work my way down and I’d stay under them. The other part of the dream, I’d just take off forever, and I’d be like, ‘Oh I gotta stay below the street wires, and then I’ll start to go back up, and I’m like, ‘I gotta go below the wires’…I have no idea what it means.”
Click here to see a slideshow of Denzel at his most debonair
Strange, albeit unassuming, it may be one of the few similarities Washington shares with his character in Flight,a psychological drama about a self-destructive pilot named Captain Whip Whitaker (Washington), who finds himself an unlikely hero when he commands a plane plummeting to its near destruction. Whitaker saves a hundred lives in the crash despite being under the influence of drugs and alcohol, questioning the notion of functioning addictions and the stretch of ethical responsibility.
“When I read the material, I just said, ‘Wow this is good,’” Washington recalls, also noting it was the last of two scripts his agent, Ed Limato, recommended before his death.
Click below to watch Denzel’s interview w/ Access Hollywood:
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As established in the opening scene, Whitaker reads like an oxymoron, strong but grossly dependent, arrogant and confident. He begins his day in a hotel room, high off cocaine and cocktails following a late night romp with a stewardess, and ends it in a hospital after a miraculous journey through the terrors of the sky. Whitaker needs help, but won’t accept it – a hero, real or imagined, who desperately wants to believe in his superpowers.
The character’s complexity turns not on his personal blights, but on his delusional understanding of how they reverberate. He’s not really a good guy; he’s not wholeheartedly bad either. Judgment, therefore, weighs the evils with the triumphs, making the acceptance of such an individual a puzzling matter for interpretation.
And according to Washington, the film leaves it simply at that.
“I don’t like waving the flag,” he explains. “It’s like when people say, ‘Well, what do you want people to get from this movie?’ I say, ‘Well it depends on what they bring to it’…I don’t try to decide what people should get from it or why. I don’t do a part for those kinds of reasons.”
Flight examines how firmly the public will stand by its hero, and whether the desire for leadership surpasses the necessity for law enforcement. It’s a query on the division of judgment, and God’s presence in a world of human conviction. Beyond the principal storyline, Washington must deal with a growing tree of unwanted circumstances: death, enablers, a broken family and the desire to repair life without using proper tools.
For a veteran star like Washington, however, it’s merely another day at work.
“Tough spots for me are pictures I don’t want to be on,” the actor jokes. “If you’re on the movie, it’s like the third day, and you go, ‘How many days we been shooting?’ ‘Three.’ ‘How many days we got to go?’ ‘117.’ That’s a tough movie for me.”
He adds, “This was an adventure. I mean, first of all, like I said, starting with the screenplay, the collaboration with the filmmaker; getting the chance to fly around in a flight simulator…hanging upside down in a plane; playing a drunk.”
The picture was directed by Robert Zemeckis, a filmmaker whose resume includes movies like Back to the Future, Castaway, and Forrest Gump, and who, until this project, has been focused more on stop-motion pictures. It’s Zemeckis’ first collaboration with Washington, and a flick many film critics are already predicting will earn significant attention during Oscar season. In a way, the endeavor capitalizes on current ethos in America, where those once glorified have abruptly fallen from grace, and consequently, the public seeks a replacement. Similarly, Washington’s character faces unraveling scrutiny for his poor decisions, but banks on society’s willingness to turn a blind eye.
“Everybody was covering their own behinds is what it was – the pilots, the airlines,” he says, describing the fallout from the plane crash in the movie. “They thought he was a great hero…They needed one in order to fulfill their own agenda.”
Click here to see a slideshow of Denzel’s 10 greatest movie roles
What may be most compelling is Whitaker’s fluctuating system of self-appraisal, and Washington’s journey in constructing those superficial and underlying layers of his character’s flaws. As an actor, Washington remembers a more painful moment of the performance when he confronts the son he’s essentially abandoned.
He notes, “I’ve gotten into wrestling matches with my son, not the same circumstance, but you’re raw. It’s just raw. Your nerves are raw, so that sticks out.”
Vivid and endearing, Washington’s made authenticity a common attribute to the creative juggernaut he’s become as an actor, from gangsters to revolutionaries, martyrs to prophets. He was inflamed as Rubin “Hurricane” Carter in The Hurricane; vengeful and calculated as Frank Lucas in American Gangster; and undeniably brutal as Detective Alonzo Harris in Training Day.
No subject matter seems beneath the reach of Washington’s hearty grasp; thus he has successfully been able to portray even real-life figures in ways others struggle to accomplish, notably that of Malcolm X.
Twenty years after the release of Spike Lee’s acclaimed movie, Washington remains constantly on the rise, shelling out another high-caliber performance in Flight that could award him his third Oscar.
“Wow, it’s been 20 years [since Malcolm X],” Washington replies when reminded of the anniversary. “I was 12 when I made that film!”
Follow Courtney Garcia on Twitter at @courtgarcia