LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) — Denzel Washington is excited. Not so much because he is an Oscar front-runner for his role in “Fences,” but because bringing the award-winning stage play about blue collar African-Americans to the big screen has been a long-held dream. The film has been nominated for four Oscars namely Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best FIlm and Best Adapted Screenplay.
“It’s brilliant. It’s like, why would they make ‘Hamlet’ a movie? Why would they make ‘Death of a Salesman” a movie? Because it is some of the greatest writing in the 20th century,” the actor told Reuters.
Pulitzer-Prize-winning “Fences,” is the first play by the late, influential black playwright August Wilson to be turned into a film.
Washington and Viola Davis reprise their 2010 Tony-winning roles as egotistical garbage worker Troy Maxson and his long-suffering wife Rose in the intense family drama about lost hope, betrayal and race prejudice in 1950s America.
“There’s an excitement because we knew that this is permanent now. This is forever. So everybody’s coming with their game,” Washington said of adapting “Fences” to film, which he also directed and produced. Washington is also involved in filming all 10 of Wilson’s stage plays for TV channel HBO.
With strong reviews, “Fences” put Washington and Davis front and center of a Hollywood awards season looking to redeem itself after the #OscarsSoWhite furor of the past two years.
Washington, 62, is seen as a leading contender for his third Oscar, while Davis, 51, is regarded by awards pundits as a shoo-in in the supporting actress race.
“Every day was an acting Olympics,” said Davis of the film shoot. “There was no scene where you just walked in and put down a pot.”
Wilson, who died in 2005, set many of his plays in the pre-civil rights era, charting the experience of African-American working men and women and their struggle for dignity and love.
“He honored people that literally had been seen as invisible throughout history and he uplifts them as exactly who they are,” Davis said.
The Oscars will be handed out at a lavish ceremony in Los Angeles on February 26.