Will It Be Denzel's Day?

That doesn't mean Washington wants to leap at every "black" film role offered to him. When he was being considered for the lead opposite Oprah Winfrey in her big-budget film "Beloved," he balked at the notion of playing Winfrey's soft-spoken lover and even suggested that Danny Glover would be a better choice for the role of a former slave. "I didn't mean it the way it came out," says Washington, who apologized to Winfrey and Glover. "But it wasn't the role for me, and I should have left it at that and not said a word." Not long after, Washington's name was thrown around for the lead in Steven Spielberg's epic about the African slave trade, "Amistad." "When you read the script and you realize that the slaves were going to be speaking in subtitles, you knew the story was going to be told through the eyes of the white people in the film. The blacks would have no voice," Washington explains. A spokesman for Spielberg says, "The movie obviously turned out very differently, not from a white person's perspective, and we used subtitles to keep it pure."

In short, Washington has little interest in playing the slave at this point in his career. He's already done that, and quite well. One of the defining moments in black cinematic history is the shot, in 1989's "Glory," of a single tear rolling down Washington's face as the whip lands on his back. "I read a lot of slave narratives for the film," he says. "Truly haunting stuff that helped me convey the pain of that period. I'll never forget the line I used to get me through the movie, and in particular the whipping scene. 'The master threw the dog a bone, but I got there first.' That line just hit me hard, the type of survival black people had to go through. I didn't need anything else." Washington won his first and only Academy Award for that performance, as best supporting actor.

They say it's never as good as the first time, and that's been true for Washington as far as Oscar is concerned. Three years later he was up for "Malcolm X" and lost. The following year it looked like he might get a nomination for "Philadelphia." But Tri-Star wanted to push Tom Hanks for best actor and Washington for supporting actor, even though Washington had equal billing. No one would argue with the fact that Hanks played the central role as a young lawyer fired from his job because he has AIDS. But Washington's character in fact had more screen time, and it was his slow transformation from an ambulance-chasing attorney buried in stereotypes to a compassionate friend who fights ceaselessly for his client's rights that gave the story momentum. "With 'Philadelphia' my agent felt strongly that we were both contenders in the best-actor category. It made sense, if you thought about it. But people didn't understand." A big blowup with Tri-Star followed, and in the end the studio didn't push Washington's name during its pre-Oscar advertising blitz. Washington wasn't nominated in either category. Studio executives declined to comment.

Today, a savvier Denzel Washington is resigned to the idea that he may have to wait yet again to win. "It's all in the politics. It's more about that than anybody knows," he says. When Washington talks about his chances of taking home a little gold man this year, he compares himself to one of his early screen idols, Al Pacino. Pacino never won an Oscar playing the iconic parts for which he is most remembered, not for "The Godfather," "Serpico" or "Dog Day Afternoon." Instead, he won for 1992's "Scent of a Woman,'' beating Washington for "Malcolm X." "Hey, at least I'm not 0-8 like Pacino," Washington says, laughing. "Then I would be screaming bloody murder.'' Maybe this year, he won't have to scream at all.

© 2002