Denzel Overboard

In a suite at London’s Corinthia Hotel, Denzel Washington is a commanding presence, even dressed down in jeans and sweatshirt. At 58, the jawline is slightly less defined than it used to be, the crinkles around his eyes deeper. But age hasn’t blunted his edge. He brings the same aura to a room as to the screen. Please him and your reward is a beaming smile. Disappoint and that stoic, penetrating stare will shrivel your soul.

It’s this quiet, potentially explosive energy that has made him one of the most successful and respected actors in Hollywood. Drawn to ambiguous characters – usually vulnerable bad guys or humble heroes who make bad decisions – nuance and humanity seem to come to him naturally.
Washington brings this complexity and slow-burning intensity to bear in Flight, the new drama from Robert Zemeckis. He plays alcoholic pilot Whip Whitaker, forced to face his inner demons after a horrific plane crash. How does Washington prepare for such an intense role?
“I had a drink this morning!” he jokes. He’s keeping the specifics of his skills a secret. Zemeckis later confirms the actor prefers to work internally. He remarks that, “On set, Denzel is very quiet. Even if you were to ask him, ‘Oh, what do you think about what we’re doing?’, his answer would always be, ‘I dunno, let’s see what happens’.”
Washington says that these days he finds it easier to leave his characters aside at the end of a working day. He used to become very emotionally attached.
“It’s different each time. I think nowadays it’s a little easier. It’s work. I do my 12, 14 hours and put it down and go to a hotel and read, get something to eat, look at tomorrow’s work. You do the job.”
When it comes to the practicalities, however, he’s keen to get his hands dirty. Despite there only being one flight sequence in the film, Washington studied and trained rigorously to lend more authenticity to his performance.
“We were allowed by Delta Airlines to use their flight simulators which are the same simulators that airline pilots train on. So you get in an actual cockpit, with a virtual world out there, and you feel like you’re doing it. You head down the runway – but we didn’t have to practise landing!” he laughs. “You try to learn a little bit about how to take off and fly. He’s a pilot, so you have to. When I played a boxer, you put the gloves on. That’s the way in. If you’re playing a musician, you play the instrument, or you try to.”
His role in Flight has earned him his sixth Academy Award nomination. He previously received the nod for Cry Freedom, Malcolm X and The Hurricane. He won outright for Glory and Training Day. Washington says he avoids the buzz around awards, preferring to get on with his work. Asked if he thinks his Oscar-nominated roles were indeed the finest of his career, he seems genuinely perplexed at the notion of reviewing and ranking his own performances.
“I don’t think about it,” he says. “I play a role and then I’m done. I don’t analyse, ‘Oh, this was my best role’. I don’t like to think about what I’ve done. I like to think about what I’m doing, when I’m doing it. When it’s done I’ll watch the movie once or twice and really won’t think about it until it’s time to talk about it. It’s nice to know people appreciate it – and it’s nice to know they’re going to see it.”
Having successfully maintained a canny distance from the press and kept his personal and family life away from the prying eyes of the media, there was some surprise that the actor brought his daughter, Olivia, to the Golden Globes. It transpires that she is an aspiring actress and, dutiful father that he is, Washington is helping her get to know the business.
Naturally he had some words of warning to offer.
“I told her it’s going to be tough. I said, ‘You’re very talented, but it’s tougher for women and especially tough for African-American women’. She loves it. She says she can work all day and not even realise it’s going by, so I said, ‘Well, you got the bug!’ And there’s no stopping that.”

Flight is in cinemas from February 1.