Denzel Washington was hesitat to appear in his first western for The Magnificent Seven. From Antoine Fuqua, director of The Equalizer director, 2016’s The Magnificent Seven is a remake of the 1960 Western of the same name. In addition to Washington, The Magnificent Seven features a star-studded cast including Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio, Matt Bomer, and Peter Sarsgaard.
As reported to Collider, Fuqua claims that The Magnificent Seven was not an easy sell to its star. As Fuqua set the scene of The Magnificent Seven to Washington, the actor cut him off by saying “I’m not gonna get on a horse.” Eventually, Fuqua got Washington to listen more to his pitch, and a while later, the director got “him to say yes.” Check out the full quote from Fuqua below:
So, I said, “Denzel, I need to have a coffee with you, man. I want to talk to you about this movie.” And he goes, “Alright.” So we get together, and I had a whole pitch. I said, “So, the sun is coming up. This man on this black horse comes…” He goes, “Wait, what?” I said, “A man on his horse,” and Denzel’s like, “I’m not gonna get on a horse.” I said, “No, no, let me finish! Magnificent Seven…” And he just sat back and listened to me, let me get out my pitch. Like halfway through my pitch, I’m thinking, “Denzel is gonna get up and walk away at any moment. He’s gonna be like, ‘No, I’m not getting on the damn horse playing a cowboy,’ but he listened. He listened for a while. That took a while to get him to say yes to Magnificent Seven.
Fuqua and Washington’s Ongoing Working Relationship
Despite his initial resistance, Washington was actually the first actor cast in The Magnificent Seven. Washington’s casting was also critical to The Magnificent Seven’s remastering of the classic Western through a modern lens. Unlike the original, Fuqua’s The Magnificent Seven has a more balanced set of lead characters from multiple backgrounds and ethnicities, contrasting with the original’s majority-white telling of the story.
In addition to the new perspective Washington brought to the film compared with its original, The Magnificent Seven also represented the continuation of the close working relationship between Fuqua and Washington. The pair first worked together on 2001’s crime drama Training Day, a breakout third feature for Fuqua, who had begun his career in music videos. After Training Day, Fuqua and Washington teamed up again to make The Equalizer and its sequels.
It makes sense then why Fuqua was so insistent on getting Washington to listen and “get out [his] pitch” for The Magnificent Seven. Fuqua’s career was elevated by an Oscar-winning performance from Washington in Training Day, thus Fuqua already knew what he was capable of. Even if “playing a cowboy” was unlike Washington, Fuqua saw potential in the superstar actor and trusted him to star in The Magnificent Seven.
