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“I love Roman,” Washington says. “It’s a character where I said, ‘I like this guy. This poor guy is trying.’ We were watching it again today and I teared up.”

Next time you see (Drake), tell him I apologize for hacking up his lyrics Denzel Washington

On a break from filming next summer’s sequel to The Equalizer, Washington rang up with Gilroy to tell us why tackling the legal drama was an open and shut case, what’s still on his bucket list and how he reacted when he heard Drake got a tattoo of Denzel’s face on his body.

Denzel, Roman is an eccentric character that we’ve never seen you play before. How did you react when you first encountered him on the page?

Washington: Coming off Fences, it was such a well written script and such an interesting character and a world that I had never been in. It had all the right things and I had seen Nightcrawler, so Dan and I met and on a handshake, I said yes… [character dramas] are fewer and farther between nowadays and where I’m at in my career and my life, I’m just interested in what I’m interested in. I’m not in it to make money. I’ve got bills like everyone else, but I read [Roman] and went, ‘Wow, that’s different.’

Dan, what inspired this character?

Gilroy: I’m old enough to remember the ‘60s and back in the ‘60s there was this universal spirit of trying to change the world in some way whether it was through civil rights or women’s rights or the [Vietnam] War, and it just seemed like after that decade a lot of that spirit dissipated. It didn’t go away, it fragmented into other things, but I became interested in the idea of a person who has never left the ‘60s; never let go of that fervent, idealistic mindset. Then I started to wonder where someone like that would be after 40 years of carrying that around. It’s great to wake up in the morning with that belief and guidance, but what does that cost you on a personal level?