“Taking to Another Level”: Oscar-Winning Actor Denzel Washington Trained With Bruce Lee’s Disciple for an Action Film in 2010

In 2010, Oscar-winning actor Denzel Washington played the lead role in an action movie called ‘The Book of Eli. While Washington wasn’t new to the genre, he took things to a whole new level when he decided to perform all his stunts by himself. He wasn’t the first actor to take this step for an action movie. However, fighting scenes are not everyone’s cup of tea. Therefore, Washington decided to seek help from experts in the field.

During the comic con in 2009, Washington revealed that he would be “knocking dudes around” in his upcoming movie. However, he learned the skill from the disciple of one of the best in the field. To prepare himself for the role, Washington sought the help of one of Bruce Lee‘s disciples.

Denzel Washington talked about his preparation for the role

In an email interview with the Deccan Herald in 2010, Washington revealed that two masters from the field helped him prepare for the role. He primarily trained under Jeff Amata, who was a disciple of the American martial arts instructor, Danny Inosanto. Furthermore, he also trained with Inosanto, who is a disciple of the legendary martial artist Bruce Lee.

It took five to six months for the actor to get the hang of it. Talking about his training with Amata and Inosanto, he said, “Jeff Amata trained me and I worked with Danny a bit. And after five, six months, we started stretching, moving and doing stuff with our eyes closed and got into the whole vibe.”

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Furthermore, in an interview with MTV, one of the directors of The book of Eli shed light on how the idea came about. “Taking to another level, Denzel said he wanted to do all the fighting himself and what we devised was doing a lot of the stuff in one shot, no cuts. So it was very organic,” said director Allen Hughes.

Did not want to create a copy

In the same interview, Washington was asked if he studied other post-apocalyptic movies to get a better understanding of the genre. To this, the Academy award winner replied that he prefers not going through similar movies while preparing for his.

Explaining his thought process, Washington shared he does so for his peace of mind. Elaborating on his point, he shared that at times, his movies will have some similarities with others. However, this way he can rest assured that the idea came from his mind. He did not intentionally copy someone’s ideas.

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Another reason for avoiding them is that he doesn’t want to question himself. He wants no doubts about whether he would be able to do what others did. Likewise, instead of making someone else do his stunts, Washington went ahead and did them on his own.