Real Training Days

He’s played a Civil War soldier, a coach battling racism, a wrongly imprisoned boxer, an ambulance-chasing attorney, a controversial black Muslim leader and, most recently, a corrupt Los Angeles police officer.

During the past two decades, Denzel Washington’s work in films such as “Glory,” “Remember the Titans,” “The Hurricane,” “Philadelphia,” “Malcolm X” and “Training Day” has earned him an Academy Award, a host of other awards, and a reputation as a focused, intense and uncompromising actor. It also seems to have prepared him well for his latest role: first-time director.

On location at the North Island Navy base in San Diego on a cloudy mid-November day, Washington grasps his chin, elbow to knee, as an uncomfortable scene unfolds on the monitor before him between a troubled and frustrated young man (newcomer Derek Luke) and his would-be girlfriend (model-turned-actress Joy Bryant).

“Good, cut,” he says of an early take. Soon after, however, the distant hum of a jet engine and the subtle change in lighting from passing clouds prompt takes five, six, seven and eight. “Print that one,” he finally says of take nine.

For his directorial debut, Washington, 47, has chosen to tell the real-life story of Antwone Fisher, an abandoned and abused young black man who turns his life around, mostly due to the discipline he learned while serving for 11 years in the Navy and the guidance of a Navy psychiatrist, played by Washington.

Directing while starring in a film has proved rigorous for Washington.

“I really didn’t enjoy acting and directing. I don’t think that’s something I’d do again,” he says. “I’m not the kind of actor who just steps in, and there’s not much time to prepare as an actor. You can’t give 100% to both things.”

But after seeing editor Conrad Buff’s first cut of the $12.5-million-budgeted film, currently known only as “The Untitled Antwone Fisher Story,” in mid-December, Washington is relieved, even enthusiastic.

“Whoo. It’s pretty good,” he says moments after walking out of the West Los Angeles editing room. “Very emotional. I’ve seen other first cuts of films that I’ve acted in, and this is a really good cut.”

“It exceeded my expectations on every level,” adds producer Todd Black, who was at Washington’s side during the shoot and was there in the editing room to see the first cut. “Denzel came in every day and knew exactly what he wanted. He had directed the movie in his head over the years.”

Fisher’s story begins with his prison birth to a mother who then deserted him. His father died at the hands of another woman two months before Fisher was born. Fisher’s life took him through the foster care system, where, he said, he was physically and sexually abused and neglected, and then to a shelter for homeless boys, where he lived when he graduated from high school. At that point, he knew none of his family.

After his best friend was shot dead in front of him, Fisher was homeless, had no close friends or family, and decided to join the Navy. It was in the service that he met a psychiatrist who pushed him to read and learn. At the suggestion of his therapist, Fisher later went on a quest to confront his painful past by finding his relatives.

His life story is triumphant, as is the nine-year journey Fisher took with Black to make a movie about his life. The unlikely pair met through a screenwriting class--started after the 1992 L.A. riots--at Bethel AME Church in South-Central Los Angeles. Fisher was taking the course, taught by Chris Smith, Black’s college roommate.

After hearing Fisher’s story, Black and Black’s former producing partner, director Randa Haines, dipped into their own pockets to cover Fisher’s expenses so he could quit his job as a security guard on the Sony Pictures Entertainment lot in Culver City and focus on writing the script. Black and Fisher took their movie idea to executives at 20th Century Fox (where Black and Haines shared a first-look producing deal), but their pitch was turned down.

Undeterred, the budding writer gave Black a 150-page handwritten first draft on yellow legal-sized paper. Fisher had read the Oscar-winning scripts for “Ordinary People” and “Terms of Endearment” to help him understand the format and art of screenwriting.

Black and Fisher worked closely over the next year on the script’s development. About 40 drafts later, Fox executives purchased the script in August 1994. Black and Fisher then waded through dozens of rewrites, which led to years of dashed hopes. The project would get hot and then not. They brought in other screenwriters and then went back to Fisher’s earlier drafts. The project was on the fast track, and then the studio tried to offload it. “It’s been dead and alive at Fox many times,” Black admits.

The perennial optimist, Fisher never gave up hope that his story would be told. “I kept the belief,” he says. “Part of trying to be successful is believing.”

Ultimately, the script found a home at the studio’s specialty division, Fox Searchlight, where executive Joe Pichirallo, responded strongly to the material.

“This is a very positive, classic underdog story,” says Pichirallo, who has worked on the project for more than four years. “It’s about a guy who succeeds against all odds. It’s the premise of many successful Hollywood films, but this one is a very personal, human story. It sends the message that if you don’t give up and believe in a dream, you can succeed.”

The “Untitled Antwone Fisher Story” opens with Fisher, then a 24-year-old sailor, being sent to the Navy psychiatrist because of his violent outbursts, which lead to fights with shipmates. Refusing at first to speak to the therapist, the young man eventually reveals details of his horrific childhood. In the end, both men benefit. Fisher learns he cannot change his past but can make a difference in his future.

Black put Fisher’s script in Washington’s hands about five years ago, offering him the role of Dr. Jerome Davenport, the fictional name of Fisher’s psychiatrist. “The story was so powerful, and the individual is so powerful,” Washington says. “That was the real reason I got involved and stuck around.”

But Washington told Black he would rather direct. The studio and Black wanted both. “We talked about other actors, but I knew there was not a better actor for the role,” Black said. “In my heart I knew that I wanted him to do it, and in my heart I knew I would get him.”

But it became increasingly difficult to find a window when Washington could step behind the camera, as he was committed to back-to-back acting jobs.

In Toronto in September 2000, Washington was before the cameras for the as-yet unreleased “John Q” (due in theaters Feb. 15) when Fox Searchlight President Peter Rice and Pichirallo pressed him for a firm commitment.

“We thought we were making the movie, and then we got put behind two other movies,” Rice said. “It made us nervous.”

Washington was resolute about making the film. He gave his word. Then he grabbed a napkin and put it writing. “I promised that Antwone Fisher’s would be the next film I’d do after ‘Training Day,’” Washington said. “So [Rice] kept it. I think he still has it.”

Back on North Island, a mustached and gum-chewing Washington is calling the shots as he nears the end of the 39-day shoot. Dressed in black nylon jogging pants, a T-shirt, windbreaker, sneakers and a baseball cap emblazoned with the Navy insignia of the 820-foot amphibious assault ship Belleau Wood, Washington has worn much of this casual ensemble for 33 days running.

The on-the-set sartorial style is a page he’s borrowed from directors with whom he’s worked, such as “Crimson Tide’s” Tony Scott, who can often be seen on the sets of his films clad in shorts and a signature pink baseball cap. “Superstition, I guess,” says Washington, who has adopted a lot of what he has learned over 20 years as an actor in 30 films.

Although Washington says nothing in his life compares with the string of traumas suffered by Fisher, he did have a foster brother and sister, and knows the importance of mentoring both personally through the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and professionally.

He has had the advantage of picking up tips for his new role as director from some of the world’s most talented ones: Norman Jewison, Sidney Lumet, Richard Attenborough, Ed Zwick, Spike Lee, Phillip Noyce and the late Alan Pakula. He recently spent some time with his “Philadelphia” director, Jonathan Demme, in Demme’s editing room in New York. “I just wanted to kind of hang around for a couple of days with him, tap his brain a little bit, show him some scenes and ask him some questions,” Washington says.

Washington’s latest acting role as a dirty cop in Warner Bros.’ “Training Day” is meanwhile earning him considerable Oscar buzz. The riveting performance has already garnered nominations for a Golden Globe and the American Film Institute’s inaugural AFI Awards 2001 as well as awards from the Los Angeles and Boston film critics.

Fisher, 42, went on to become a well-paid screenwriter who has done rewrites on such films as “Money Talks” and “Rush Hour,” as well as the author of a memoir, “Finding Fish,” published by William Morrow earlier this year and released in paperback this month.

“The Navy saved my life,” says Fisher, who is married and the father of two. “Having been so angry after my adolescence that having the opportunity to get in trouble in a controlled environment saved me. A lot of kids join the military with problems. In my case, I had the time to work them out and people to help me.”

The Navy’s cooperation was also essential to making the film. The military branch was accommodating, albeit not at any taxpayer expense, according to U.S. Navy Cmdr. Robert Anderson. “We were able to arrange a lot of things around already planned events,” Anderson said, including the use of a ship overnight, military vehicles, helicopters and off-duty personnel. For a relatively low-budget film like this one, it would have been impossible to achieve the look of the film without Navy help.

“I said to my boss in Washington, ‘If I went to the studios and begged them to do a pro-Navy movie, I couldn’t have done better than this,’” says Anderson, the Navy’s liaison with Hollywood. “This story shows that we care about our people and we put time and effort into them. Antwone is a recruiting poster for the Navy, and the movie will be too.”

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Beth Laski is an entertainment journalist based in Los Angeles.