Ethan Hawke Says Working Along Side Denzel Washington On ‘Training Day’ Taught Him About Film Acting

Ethan Hawke has revealed how his whole approach to acting changed when he got the chance to witness Denzel Washington improvise during the filming of Training Day. Hawke sat down for Vanity Fair's "Scene Selection" series to rewatch his own filmography and ended up giving Washington the ultimate flowers, saying that he’s “one of the greatest to ever do what I've dedicated my life to. Hawke expanded on that claim while explaining the context behind the filming of Washington’s “King Kong” monologue for the movie. "This scene was shot very late in production and exploded into one of the greatest improvisations I've ever seen in my life on camera," Hawke said. "I've never seen anything like it." By his account, director Antoine Fuqua had three cameras running and simply let it go. "Ideas he had had for improvs throughout the film were coming out of him, like a great jazz musician doing a solo unexpectedly," Hawke said. "And Antoine was smart enough to roll with it." Hawke stayed in the moment on camera and kept listening while Washington kept talking. "It really was like watching Eric Clapton with a guitar and Miles Davis with a trumpet," he said. "It was just staggering." Hawke then revealed what he learned from the experience. "It taught me what film acting could be. Running lines at Denzel Washington is not like running lines with other people," Hawke said. "He's got his internal monologue, what he's saying when you're talking. His imagination is very, very powerful and he can hear counter melodies and things a lot of people don't pay attention to." He described Washington as working two angles at once, inside the character's head and outside with the audience, clocking in real time what would and would not play. "I hadn't been in a movie like this, like a proper Hollywood movie," Hawke said. "He and Antoine, they treated me, and they treated Jake with a lot of respect cuz I think they both knew that Denzel was going to be great in the movie no matter what. But if Jake was also good in the movie, then we had a chance for it to be a serious film."

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