The true believers: Denzel Washington and director Dan Gilroy team up for social justice

Dan Gilroy’s “Nightcrawler” is about as jaded a view of modern journalism as recent cinema has to offer. So hearing the writer-director’s “Roman J. Israel, Esq.,” starring Denzel Washington, is set at the intersection of litigation — with all its loopholes, compromises and questionable motives — and social activism, one might expect 2 hours and 2 minutes of bleak cynicism.

One’s expectations would be confounded.

There are “people who wake up every morning with that North Star. I so respect it,” says Gilroy.

“When I’m 10,” he says, “I have posters of Abbie Hoffman and I’m reading about Huey Newton and all these guys. I was formed with this idea that we should be doing more, and I totally left it. And I’ve always felt guilty about it. I very much look up to people who sacrifice their time for other people, expecting no other reward than they did it.”

The titular character of “Roman J. Israel, Esq.,” brought to life by Washington, is a brilliant lawyer with savant-like recall who never leaves the backroom of his firm to venture into court. He gives indications of being on the autism spectrum, which may explain his singular focus and his firm’s reluctance to let him try cases. It may also explain why, when he’s thrown into the fore after three-plus decades of that quiet existence, the fires of his sociopolitical beliefs are still burning brightly.

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Dan Gilroy earned an Oscar nomination for writing his directorial debut “Nightcrawler,” and he dropped by the L.A. Times studio at the Toronto International Film Festival to discuss his second directorial effort, “Roman J. Israel, Esq.,” starring De

“Because he’s been protected,” says Washington, a two-time Oscar winner. “He talks about the front line, but he hasn’t been on the front line.

“I found my way to the spectrum; it wasn’t in the script. Why is he not capable [of courtroom appearances] … not just because he’s so idealistic; I couldn’t buy that. A good friend of mine is an attorney; he said, ‘There’s guys like that, they do what they do and they’re great at it and you keep them in back.’ ”

It’s an unglamorous role; a pudgy, ill-kempt, socially inept shadow dweller who can’t defend himself physically or handle himself around women. So one naturally thinks … Denzel Washington?

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“Roman is someone who deeply believes in something. And you have to buy that, period,” says Gilroy, who wrote the role for Washington but didn’t tell him until the actor was on board. “Looking at Denzel’s interviews, because I’d never met him, he speaks passionately and fervently about his belief in something bigger than himself. I thought, ‘This is a perfect fit.’ ”

Gilroy acknowledges he hadn’t had autism in mind, but when Washington introduced it, he thought, “This is what you dream of. You dream of having a talented person taking your work and making it better.”

Washington embodies Roman’s odd mix of humility and arrogant certainty, delivering Gilroy’s crackling dialogue with disarming straightforwardness. When he talks ardently about the law’s role in social justice, that resonance Gilroy sought shines through, sometimes shaping moments surprisingly.

“It was not planned, when he goes to get the job and he has all those emotions that start to come out in the middle of it; it just happened,” says Washington of a memorable job-interview scene. “I fought it and fought it and fought it and stayed with it — I don’t know that we had many takes of it, maybe just the one — ”

“That was the one,” says Gilroy.

“— but it speaks volumes. A 200-page monologue couldn’t make you understand his conviction more than that,” says Washington. “I love that guy, Roman. I’ve never said that that much about a character. It’s almost like I’m watching somebody else. ‘Dag gone, man, he means it.’ I would want to be that passionate about something.”

The production captured a few shots without locking down streets, letting the actors roam among unsuspecting civilians. Washington is surprised to hear this, saying he had forgotten those weren’t just unusually chatty extras. But the actor does recall what happened when bystander photos of him in his not-the-Sexiest-Man-Alive guise went online.

“You’d see the comments: ‘He looks like a fat so-and-so.’ At first I thought, ‘That’s OK, they can say whatever.’ Then I thought, ‘Don’t step over Roman Israels.’ He’s a human being. It’s so easy to put someone down. We can sit in the house, hide, say mean things. Maybe that was always there, but now there’s a platform. If that’s what people are practicing, what are they going to become masters at?

“It gave me strength, more conviction: ‘That’s why I want to do this.’ That’s what happens to guys like that.”

One of the earnest points of “Roman” is that those one might overlook just might have something that was missing, some spark.

Gilroy says, “We’re born with something, we’re given something that has a direction for us. There are embers that are sort of glowing; a guy like Roman shows up and fans them. For some people, they can keep you warm your whole life. For other people, it can turn into a forest fire, which can burn you out. We inspire each other or we bring each other down.”

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