Show caption Denzel Washington (third from right) in The Magnificent Seven … ‘The average person who’s paying to see it is just looking for a good time.’ Photograph: MGM The Magnificent Seven Denzel Washington on diversity western The Magnificent Seven: ‘Audiences like to know who they’re rooting for’ The veteran actor joins Chris Pratt to discuss his remake of the classic western. But why are they so keen to play down its obvious radical political subtext? Ryan Gilbey Thu 15 Sep 2016 11.07 EDT Share on Facebook

Share on Twitter

Share via Email

It is mid-afternoon and the Venice Lido is a ghost town baking in the sun. The film festival wound down the previous evening, and now the thoroughfare between the beach and the cinemas is deserted except for construction workers in threes and fours dismantling the decorations. The glitz has faded. The stars are gone.

Well, most of them. Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt are the last men standing in this tumbleweed town. In the street, their faces loom menacingly out of the posters for the remake of The Magnificent Seven, in which an ethnically diverse cast of outlaws and miscreants defend oppressed townsfolk from a brutal tyrant. Seated at a table in a hotel room, the actors appear somewhat less than magnificent. Washington is slumped in his seat. He is 61, heavy-set, tired-looking. He may be dressed in a baggy, grey T-shirt and jogging bottoms but his magnetism is undimmed. When he peers straight at you, there’s a crackle of electricity in the air. Those aren’t ordinary eyes: they’re the eyes of all the indomitable men he’s played, from Steve Biko to Malcolm X, the boxer Ruben Carter in The Hurricane to the drug lord Frank Lucas in American Gangster. He sweats gravitas.

His 37-year-old co-star – who is wearing jeans and a thin suede jacket, and sporting a sketchy beard – carries his fame more lightly. Pratt made his name as a deliriously dopey member of the Parks and Recreation ensemble. Superstardom only descended, though, once his loosey-goosey charms were transposed to a blockbuster setting in Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World. A second Guardians movie is due next May.

For now, it’s all about The Magnificent Seven. Except neither Washington nor Pratt seems especially keen to go on the record about any resonance the film might have in the wider world. With a cast list that offers a rebuke to conventional Hollywood casting (there’s even a woman among the seven heroes) and a conflict that pits poor against rich, the movie is in the tradition of westerns that comment on our times, such as Soldier Blue or The Wild Bunch. The film’s director, Antoine Fuqua, who coaxed Washington toward an Oscar-winning performance as a corrupt cop in Training Day, has said westerns “reflect where we are in the world”. So where exactly are we?

Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt in The Magnificent Seven. Photograph: Sam Emerson/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.

Pratt wrinkles his nose. “Everything reflects,” he says. “Mirrors reflect.” He lets that comment hang in the air. “I’m just not sure exactly what that reflection looks like.” Washington has a stab. “Audiences like to know who they’re rooting for,” he says. “I remember going to the movies and having that feeling – ‘I wanna be that guy.’ Unfortunately, that was the 1970s so it was usually drug dealers: ‘I’m gonna be a dope dealer like him!’”

Still keen to hear how their Magnificent Seven relates to society today, I press the point. Why make the film now? “You’re putting too much on it, man!” Washington hoots. “It’s a movie. Antoine was excited about westerns. He grew up watching them with his grandma. He wanted to see me and Chris riding on horses. Next thing I know …” He mimes trotting along on horseback, invisible reins in his hands. “It wasn’t, like: ‘How are we going to reflect society?’”

Point taken. As Washington pointed out in 1990, “Guys won’t spend $15 on Friday night to take their girls to see [Cry Freedom, in which he played Steve Biko]. Making movies like that shows that we’re committed to doing something about the issues, but people can see issues on the news for free.” But doesn’t The Magnificent Seven fall into the category of entertainment that carries a thoughtful, progressive message? “That’s for the audience to decide. We’ll see. No hidden baggage over here!” He raises his arms, as though inviting me to frisk him. “I’m sorry if I’m not deep enough for you. I’m trying! I’m trying to get there.”

The room suddenly seems a tad warm. Pratt leans in. “There’s definitely a conversation that’s happening around the world and the movie seems to have become part of that. But that wasn’t our intention. I’m not the most articulate guy. I wish I were. So I’m not gonna be the one to express it. At the end of the day, it’s two hours of kickass entertainment.”

I try another tack. The villain, played by Peter Sarsgaard, is a greedy industrialist whose only love is for land and power. Any current presidential candidates spring to mind? Washington is having none of it. “Nah. That’s what you may see. The audience may not.” I’m part of the audience, though. “Are you? You gonna pay to see the movie?” I’ve already seen it. “Are you gonna pay? Answer the question.” I tell him I would do had I not seen it. I start to explain that I paid to see Safe House and Unstoppable and many of his other films. But it’s too late. He’s already laughing and braying (“A-ha! See? Right?”) and wagging his finger triumphantly.

“The average person who’s paying to see it is just looking for a good time. When I did Cry Freedom, a doctor friend told me: ‘Denzel, I have life and death in my hands every single day. I go to the movies to escape.’ What I got from that was that just because it’s important to me doesn’t mean it’s important to the everyday person. We just try to give them enough to get the monkey off their back so they can feel like: ‘Hey, I’m Chris Pratt up there,’ or ‘I’m Denzel.’ It ain’t that deep.”

Chris Pratt in Guardians of the Galaxy. Photograph: Uncredited/AP

I point out that films can easily contain both action and ideas. They’re not mutually exclusive. He has starred in plenty of examples – Malcolm X, Crimson Tide, Inside Man, Flight. “Sure,” he concedes. The pressing issue now is why neither actor will offer even the most superficial interpretation of the new picture. Is there a danger that if they describe it as one thing – the “diversity western”, say, or the “anti-Trump allegory” – then it will become fixed as that forever? “No, there’s a danger if you do,” Washington tells me. “How many readers you got?” I tell him what I can remember about circulation figures and online traffic. “What an opportunity you have.” He sits back in his seat in the manner of a statesman who has settled a complex debate decisively, rather than an actor who has avoided a question. He stares at me for a moment, then his face breaks into a smile. “I’m just messing witchoo,” he says.

Once again, Pratt steps in with a placatory aside. “It’s tough these days. I’m expecting people to talk about this movie and form their own opinions. I want theirs to be as valuable as mine. I’m not a politician. I’m not in the business of trying to shape people’s opinions. I’m an entertainer. I know there’s a giant industry now of talking about stuff and saying stuff.”

Washington lunges forward, palms downwards on the table. “Today’s subject: phones,” he says in the mock-authoritative voice of a news anchor. “Are phones safe for you? We have three experts on the left. And three experts on the right. We’ll be right back after this.” Pratt launches into an advertising jingle – “Maybe it’s Maybelline!” – and the two men rock back and forth, laughing raucously. I laugh too, although I’m confused. Pratt’s objection, as far as I can make out, is that people are prone to discussion. He sets me straight: “I find myself kind of withdrawing a bit. Look, no one pays me for my opinion. If I say something stupid and it becomes a headline, it’s, like: ‘Guess what Chris said!’ Then everyone clicks on this stupid thing I said.” He looks into his lap. “This is going really well,” he says quietly.

I ask if they’ve both simply resolved to keep personal and political opinions private. “Would you?” Washington shoots back. I tell him that if he asked me a question, I’d answer it straight. “Who would you vote for if you could vote in the US election?” Easy. Hillary Clinton. And him? “That’s private.” Pratt perks up: “I’m writing ‘Denzel’ on the ballot,” he says. More laughter.

In 1992, when Bill Clinton was elected, Washington said he felt “a little hope”. I ask how he feels now and for a moment he looks like a man sick to death of having things he said more than 20 years ago read back to him. “I hope so,” he admits finally. Then it’s back to entertainment. “Whatever I’m thinking doesn’t have anything to do with the people who go see the movie to have fun. I never saw any movie because I read an article about it.” Ah. Now the unspoken question hanging in the air is: why are we doing this interview?

Instead, I steer it back to him. As a young actor, Washington was a big fan of James Earl Jones. Wouldn’t he have been interested in Jones’s opinions? He swivels round in his chair to address Pratt: “I saw James Earl Jones do Oedipus the King. He was magnificent. I went backstage and he let me try on his rings in the dressing room. They were huge! And he had this big, booming voice.” He turns back to me. “That’s what it was. Not: ‘Mr Jones, what are your political opinions?’ Who cares?” So wouldn’t he have been curious to read about what Jones thought? “That assumes I was reading.”

Pratt jumps in. “They didn’t market that kind of thing,” he says. On the contrary, I tell him, whenever I research actors from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, they are invariably more forthcoming in their interviews. They offer opinions. They risk controversy. They don’t always play it safe. He asks me why that is and I suggest to him that information spreads so quickly now, and in so many different directions, that self-censorship and rigid PR management are the only ways to exert control. “You’re in the fortunate position of being able to research and take your time,” Washington tells me. “But, with clickbait, it doesn’t even need to be true. It just has to be first. ‘Oh, it was all lies? Who cares?’”

Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt at The Magnificent Seven premiere in Venice. Photograph: Ettore Ferrari/EPA

Indeed, the last time the Guardian interviewed Washington, the paper was upbraided by his publicists, who claimed that a quote about him not having made friends with his white counterparts in Hollywood had been taken out of context. The furore spread in an instant. Websites inveighed against this newspaper for printing falsehoods. Only after a few days did it transpire that Washington’s representatives had made no such objection. The complaint itself was a hoax.

Such misunderstandings perhaps help to explain all the pussyfooting. Even so, Washington and Pratt have managed not to deliver a single tangible opinion – unless you count their views on the risks of giving opinions. It’s a tonic, then, to speak to Fuqua, who tells me that, yes, his version of The Magnificent Seven is unequivocally a portrait of the modern world. “Everything’s a little chaotic. We’re a bit divided. We’re fighting enemies we can’t see and who don’t play by our rules. There is tyranny. But the best part is we have a choice. In the film, we have black, white, Asian, Mexican, Native American, a white woman, all coming together to fight injustice.”

Fuqua has no issue with the movie being seen as an emblem of diversity. “There’s a problem. We did something about it. And here’s the beauty part: MGM and Sony backed it. No one said: ‘A black man? A Native American?’” He is even happy for the villain to be regarded as a Trump surrogate. “I wouldn’t say not to. He represents that type. When I said tyranny, I meant raping the land, stealing people’s money. I made the movie because I wanted to say that.” I breathe an internal sigh of relief at his directness. That wasn’t so hard, was it? Nothing like getting blood out of stones or opinions out of A-list actors.