Denzel Washington Talks Unstoppable

by Helen Earnshaw | 22 November 2010

Denzel Washington is one of the biggest and most versatile actors that are currently working in Hollywood. He has already had box office success this year with The Book of Eli but this week he is back with a new movie Unstoppable.

The action movie reunites him with filmmaker Tony Scott and sees him work alongside Chris Pine and Rosario Dawson on a movie that is based on true events.

With an unmanned, half-mile-long freight train barrelling toward a city, a veteran engineer and a young conductor race against the clock to prevent a catastrophe.

I caught up with the Oscar winner to discuss his new movie and what lies ahead for him in front and behind the camera.

- This is your fifth film with director Tony Scott so what is about him as a filmmaker that keeps you coming back?

He calls me number one and asks me to, which is always a good thing. First of all he makes excellent films, I really like his movies, and I like him because he is a good guy and he works hard, and he calls.

There’s no plan to it, however he didn’t call me about Top Gun 2.

- Who has called about Top Gun 2?

No one. I don’t know the scrip or the story is that set to go now?

- You tell us.

I know as much as you do. It’s real simple for me… I read the script. You know talk is cheap ’Oh I’ve got this great idea’ I’m look ’Good go write it and I will see you when you have got something that I can read.

- Going onto Unstoppable how much did you know about the true story?

Nothing, I knew nothing about it all. The first time that I saw the footage, the actual footage, was when Tony showed it to me - I had never heard about it at all.

Our movie is inspired by true event, the guy I play is not black and he is not called Frank Barnes, I don’t know what percentage is true but it was inspired by those events.

- Did you get to speak to any of those guys?

Oh yeah I met Jessie, that’s the guy who my character is based upon; in fact when we were talking he was the one who brought up Hooters and we put that in the movie. (laughs)

He was kind of wicked with it somebody had asked him ’when are you going to let me take out your daughter?’ and he was like ’well when are you going to let me take out your mother?’

That was the kind of guy that he was and we actually shot that but Tony cut it out, I suppose it wasn’t very family friendly or something.

- You missed the Hooters scene that must have been disappointing?

Yeah, oh well. That’s the interesting thing about the film for me was seeing it all put together because all I saw was our bit, we were either in the train or on top of it.

I didn’t didn’t even meet the girls (who played his daughters) until the last scene and I didn’t meet Rosario Dawson until the last scene so it wasn’t like all those elements were there and it was exciting when I saw the film; it was intense.

- I read a quote from you saying that this was one of the most terrifying movie set that you had been on so can you talk a little bit about the filming process.

Well Tony basically said ‘Denzel, we need you to get on top of the train and run across it’ and I said ‘ok’ but then he said ‘we will be going at 50mph’ and I was like ‘What? Well get the stunt man don’t talk to me’ (laughs)

But at the end of the day the needed the shots of me up there doing it so I got up there.

- So how much of that is you actually running across the trains?

I’m not exactly sure but that didn’t matter because doing it once was enough, in fact when I saw the footage I was like ’you have to use me more’. There are shots of feet and stuff and I didn’t have to do that, look the stuntman did the overwhelming majority of it but everything he did I did at least once - which was enough.

- In the film Frank does have a very complex relationship with his daughters do you empathise with that at all?

Did you ever like not talk to your father and give him one work answers? Exactly, my daughters do the same thing I ask ‘How are you’ all I get is ‘Fine’. ‘Do you want to talk?’ ‘No’. That was easy to play - but in this case he forgets his daughter’s birthday.

But I think it also sets up, it might be cliché, but always tell your significant others that you love them because you never know how the day is going to go and that is definitely the arc for them, yes he forgot and she treats him bad for it but then she could have lost him the same day.

- As much as Unstoppable is an action movie there is very modern story of Frank going to lose his job and be replaced, was that a very important part of the story for you?

Absolutely, I mean especially when we got down there; it was interesting watching the news here last night and they were talking about the policemen who they were going to ask to retire after thirty years to bring in younger people.

But once I got down there to Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, they call it the rust belt, one town we shot in had 70% unemployment and there were lots of very depressed areas and that was when it really hit home.

Suddenly it was like ‘Ok we are not just running around on trains this is serious business’ we had a casting call for fifty extras, we needed fifty men, two thousand turned up - so that was the reality of and I think that we felt more responsibility in representing these folks, not just in a positive light, but telling their story that times are tough.

- When you say that two thousand turned up for this casting and you are making a movie that has a $100 million budget, or whatever it was in the end, does that seem a bit odd the difference between the two situations?

Well the good news was we were spinning the money down there, we filled up the hotels and we put a lot of people to work; they were really happy that we were there.

I suppose that you could have made the movie in a back lot of LA but really it couldn’t have been made anywhere else but there - and it does give you somewhat of a good feeling knowing that you are putting people to work.

- But it doesn’t feel strange to be getting how ever many million people on the movie get when these guys are desperately looking for work? We have a similar debate over here about soccer players getting too much money so I was wondering if you thought that the entertainment business is being caught by the recession?

My mother used to have a beauty shop, she would do hair, and she would always talk about when times got tougher business would go up because a woman may not be unable to buy that extra dress but she wants to feel good about herself so she would get her hair done.

When times get tougher the movie business actually gets better because people want to escape, to just do a movie about the plight of the unemployed in West Virginia well the people in West Virginia don’t want to see that.

I remember when I did Cry Freedom and I was like ’this is a very serious film’ then a friend of mine, he is a doctor, said to me ’I deal with life and death everyday I don’t want to go to a movie that deals with life and death I want to go to a movie and enjoy the experience.’

So I think , it’s the reason I’m doing the films that I’m doing, I know that people want to escape, during the post depression musicals and comedies were the big thing because people wanted to laugh and get away from how tough life is, so I’m in the right business.

As for salaries Avatar makes $2.7 billion dollars how much should James Cameron get? He put it together and if I were him I would like a billion of it, why not?

- I don’t know if you have ever experienced this but do you ever hear stories about ageism in Hollywood?

I think it’s probably, I don’t think I know, it’s tougher for women once you hit forty they want to kick you to the curb and bring and get the next young girl.

At the same time you have someone like Betty White who is eighty who is having a resurgence in her career - acting is the one business where you don’t have to retire you can work until you expire.

- And will you continue to do action movies?

You know I don’t really do movies by category, I don’t say I’m an action guy, if there’s a script that I like and find interesting then that’s what it is I don’t go by category.

- The movies that you and Tony make together do you think it’s fair to say that he looks upon your characters as a man of the people and the good guy? Are you happy with that or do you sometime hanker to play the bad guy like John Travolta in The Taking of Pelham 123?

In the first film that we did together, Crimson Tide, I wasn’t really the everyday guy, it was somewhat unusual. And I have played the bad guy, I won an Oscar for playing the bad guy, of course right after Training Day every script that I got was about an evil cop - that’s the way Hollywood works.

- What kind of professional ambitions are there left for you know? Are there directors that you need to work with or actors that you need to work with?

I just did a play on Broadway, Fences, and we had a great run and won all of the Tony Awards and everything so I love the theatre, I love directing, I’m working on a couple of scripts, and I love acting so right now I have a good mix where I can move around.

- And can you see your focus shifting from acting to filmmaking in the future?

I like the way that it’s going, I don’t know if I’m honest - I’m not going to be running on trains I can tell you that much (laughs).

I’m not working on any things that I can talk about, they haven’t given me the money to do it yet, but I’m just keeping working on it. But I love directing and I want to direct again.

- You say that you enjoy the theatre so have you ever thought about coming over to the West End?

Well I just did Fences and really had a good run and they asked me to come over but at that point I wasn’t ready to continue. I had just done fourteen weeks and I was like thank you very much but my knees need to heal - but I would love to at the right time.

- When you see your children and they are in sports, in acting and in law, all things that you have great interest in, do you see your traits manifested in them?

Well my oldest boy is a professional football player so I’m living the dream through him - he scored a touchdown the other night. My youngest daughter (laughs) wants to be an actress, but she is actually very good.

When she was auditioning for acting schools and colleges I told her that I wanted to see her audition pieces, and she fell on the floor and got all dramatic, and I told her I said ’Look, I’m going to be honest with you, it’s too tough a business if you aren’t good I will let you know’.

And, unfortunately for me, she was excellent and I was like ’oh shoot’ so she is acting away and she loves it.

My other daughter is the brains; she just graduated from Yale and is studying to go to law school. And my other son he is the numbers guys, when he was young all he wanted to do was play Monopoly.

But the thing that I have found watching tem grow up is they really are who they are from birth almost he has always been interested in number and we found video of John David at one year old and all he could say is ‘football’.

- How comfortable were you when your daughter came home and said ‘Right dad I want to be an actress’ knowing how fickle the industry can be?

Sure it’s tough. But I’m glad that she is in a good university where she will get a degree in English as well in case it doesn’t work out or she changes her mind.

- You are going to be hosting the Nobel Peace Prize that sounds like quite a big deal so is it an honour for you?

Well my mother thought so I was like ‘I’m not winning the Nobel Peace Prize I’m just serving up the meal I’m not getting to eat’. I guess so, unfortunately this year I won’t actually get to see the recipient because he is in jail, but it should be interesting.

What happened is my buddy, who is a genius professor at Harvard, he is a part of the Nobel committee and he has talked to me over the year about coming over and doing that and last year he asked me if I wanted to give it a shot this year and I said ok.

- I read that you might be interested in play Nelson Mandela can you tell us a little bit about that?

Well they are interested in me playing Mandela lets put it like that.

- Have you met him?

Yeah, he has been to my house - we sat down and had a nice meal. It was 2002 he came over, I think it was 2002, I couldn’t believe it I was like ‘Nelson Mandela is sitting in my house. But what I did was I told my kids that they could invite two or three of their friends, because I thought of young people; but then their parents and their aunts started showing up (laughs).

And Sylvester Stallone lives in my neighbourhood and one of my security guards said ‘Do you know Sylvester Stallone?’ And I was like ‘Yeah’ and he said ‘well he keeps riding back and forth’ (laughs) and I said tell him he can come in, Oprah was there as well. But as big as these people were, the stars that were there, the king was there and everyone was on every word.

Unstoppable is released 26th November.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw