'She's a sweetheart as you'll see if you've talked to her already. But this young girl, she brings a lot of joy out of him, and brings it back to life.'ĭakota Fanning, who made an auspicious debut with her performance in 2000's I Am Sam, plays that little girl with remarkable maturity, and Washington indicated that he enjoyed immensely their time together. You know, he's not the life of the party necessarily.

So I can invest in the darkness knowing it's about the journey. He's got the bible in one hand and the Jack Daniels in the other, and he's done a lot of things which we never find out about, which I think is interesting.'Ĭontinuing, he said, 'We don't know specifically what he's done, but he asks Christopher 's Rayburn, 'do you think God will forgive us for what we've done?' And no, he won't. And I told Tony about it, and it was a scripture I got from a guy I had done some research with on Training Day. It's just about coming out of the darkness. 'There's a connection to Training Day here, because I brought Tony this scripture I had read. That was the first time I played a bad guy and learned a lot about it – like they have all the fun,' he said, laughing. 'Probably more so my role 14 years ago in Richard III. Washington said that the Training Day role freed him up to play different kinds of characters in future films, but that performance was merely the most public of his villainous portrayals, which began over a decade ago on stage. I like Tony, and I trust him.'ĭenzel Washington is a ¿man on fire¿ who relentlessly pursues a kidnapping ring. That first meeting, I think I left with about 10 or 15 books. 'It was just his enthusiasm, the amount of research he'd done already. So he said he stumbled into some little picture called Top Gun,' Washington added dryly. I guess The Hunger didn't do well or whatever, artistically or probably financially, so he couldn't get this off the ground like he wanted to. This was the film he wanted to do after The Hunger, a film I really liked. They deserved it.' Describing his first reaction to the script, he continued, 'I read the script, but then I sat down with Tony, and he told me about this 20-odd year journey he's had with this material. 'I think we went for it, because look at the wicked stuff did. 'I don't think it read like we shot it,' he said with a laugh. When asked if the project always had the blunt, forceful, and intense focus that showed up on screen in the finished film, Washington said that it may have demonstrated more nuance as a script.

The lines between so-called 'good' and 'evil' are blurred in Man on Fire Creasy is a flawed, self-destructive man, and his retribution is replete with questionable justification. We're a sick society basically, that's what you're telling me.' Washington wasn't in attendance, but his co-star Radha Mitchell ( Phone Booth) regaled him with the details of crowd reactions. At the press screening, audible applause rose from the audience on numerous occasions, affirming our collective feelings of vengeance when we see a child come to harm. or a year, that people were going to cheer or that they needed to.'īut cheer they have. I didn't do it because I thought eight months from now. It's probably just coincidence that they're all coming out at the same time.' Denying the possibility that he, or anyone else who's starring in the competing films was merely jumping onto some kind of bandwagon, Washington said, 'I don't think one says, oh they're doing one, we'd better do one too.' I didn't know these other films were coming out, nor did I know what they were about. 'You guys know because you go to the movies. Washington asserts that he wasn't aware that his film was part of this recent glut of revenge epics prior to when we spoke to him at Man on Fire's recent press day.

Man on fire