Antoine Fuqua reveals how friend Denzel Washington brought his dark side to The Equalizer series
Actor Denzel Washington is upping the ante for his role in the latest instalment of bloody action franchise The Equalizer.
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Director Antoine Fuqua refuses to confirm or deny the theory that he made The Equalizer 3 on the Amalfi Coast just so he could enjoy la dolce vita for a few months with his friend, long-time collaborator and Italophile Denzel Washington.
“I’ll never tell,” he says with a laugh on Zoom call from New York, before adding, “I’ll just say we enjoyed it quite a bit.”
The production last year took over the tiny fishing town of Atrani – perched above the Bay Of Naples, just up the coat from Amalfi and with a population of just 832 – for the third and likely final film in the hit action franchise. And while the spectacular location gave the film a fresh flavour compared with its two US-set predecessors, and cast and crew revelled in the abundant seafood and delicious Italian cuisine, it also brought its own set of problems. Namely the steps in the centuries old town. So many steps.
“Oh my God, the stairs,” groans Fuqua at the very memory. “700 steps, all the cobblestones, a lot of sore knees. All that good stuff. There’s nothing there, right? It’s a fishing town, so you have to bring everything in and you have to be patient. It tests your patience because it’s not a studio backlot.
“When I got there, I looked at it and said ‘okay, so how do we get the equipment there?’. And it was, ‘oh, you use donkeys and all that’. I never even saw a donkey.”
Ever since Fuqua directed Washington to his first Best Actor Oscar in the 2001 hit Training Day, the pair have been firm friends and confidents and have now collaborated on five films together. In addition to the three Equalizer films – about an ex-soldier and spy turned vigilante and loosely based on the ‘80s TV show of the same – they also teamed up for the 2016 remake of the beloved Western, The Magnificent Seven.
Fuqua says that “mutual respect and trust” is the key to their relationship, which he likens to the ongoing successful partnership between master director Martin Scorsese and his frequent leading man Robert De Niro. The bond was forged early on Training Day – just Fuqua’s third film after making the transition from music videos – when the nervous director invited his A-list, Oscar-winning star if he wanted to check the monitors after the very first scene they shot.
“Denzel looked at me and said ‘you’re flying this plane – call me when you’re ready’ and went to his trailer. He’s never, ever come and looked at my monitor since we have worked together.”
The Equalizer protagonist Robert McCall was the first time Washington had returned to a character and that fact that he’s come back for a third chapter is a good indicator of how invested he is in the OCD-afflicted, often brutal and bloody dispenser of anonymous justice. The third film comes on the back of Washington’s acclaimed turn in the title role of The Tragedy of Macbeth and while he revels in serious dramatic fare and regularly returns to the stage, he long ago learned the value of more populist fare and says he constantly gets bailed up by fans wanting to know when he is going to do another Equaliser film.
In a separate interview before the current writers and actors strikes, Washington reveals how earlier in his career he tried to explain to a doctor friend how terribly important his role as anti-Apartheid activist Steve Biko was in Cry Freedom – and received a reality check in reply.
“I was telling him about it and he was like ‘I deal with life and death every day, I go to the movies to escape, to have fun, not to deal with life and death’,” Washington says. “And I was like, ‘I never thought of it that way’. Just because it was important to me doesn’t mean it was important to him.”
That said, Washington says that to keep going back to “working-class hero” McCall, he has to “find more of a reason than just running and jumping around and shooting people” To that end, he says, he’s put more and more of himself into the character – and Fuqua agrees.
“I’m sure there is quite a bit of him,” Fuqua says. “He’s got a dark side, as you imagine.”
But while Washington isn’t exactly one to take down Russian mobsters with a corkscrew and a nail gun – or the vicious Camorra in the case of the latest film – he has long been one to use his power, wealth and influence for good, without seeking the credit for it.
Washington famously helped the late Chadwick Boseman to reach his potential by funding a course at the British Academy of Dramatic Acting, and there are many other stories of him lending an anonymous helping hand to those less fortunate.
“He is honourable in the most quiet way,” says Fuqua. “I’ve seen him give money and do a lot of things. He doesn’t want publicity for it. He doesn’t look for it. He’s an actor first. If you call him a movie star, he doesn’t see himself that way. That’s why it goes and does theatre. He loves acting … and he lives and breathes it. So when he sees young people who really want it and really want to put the work in, he embraces them, and he’s very generous that way.”
At 68, Washington says he still relishes the physical challenge of action movies and has dropped 20kg and reshaped his body since the beginning of last year to prepare not just for The Equalizer 3 but also for his role in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator 2, which began filming in June but has now been delayed by the strike.
“I don’t want to say you have to reinvent the wheel but you need challenges and you know in this case and even going forward in preparation for doing Gladiator 2, just the physical challenge and … you have to look the part. And I’m getting there.”
As for where to draw line between doing his own stunts and knowing when to let the professionals step in, Washington says it’s literally a question of give and take.
“Because I’ve been training and boxing for years, for decades, I’m good at throwing punches and being physical,” he says. “But to answer your question I’ve got a great stuntman and I try to let him do as much as he can and I try to take credit for all of it. So when it comes to throwing punches, usually it’s me throwing them! When it comes to catching punches, usually it’s him. So how’s that?”
The Equalizer 3 opens in cinemas on August 31
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