Storyline

Plot Summary: 

In the not-too-distant future, some 30 years after the final war, a solitary man walks across the wasteland that was once America. Empty cities, broken highways, seared earth–all around him, the marks of catastrophic destruction. There is no civilization here, no law. The roads belong to gangs that would murder a man for his shoes, an ounce of water…or for nothing at all. But they’re no match for this traveler.
A warrior not by choice but necessity, Eli (Denzel Washington) seeks only peace but, if challenged, will cut his attackers down before they realize their fatal mistake. It’s not his life he guards so fiercely but his hope for the future; a hope he has carried and protected for 30 years and is determined to realize. Driven by this commitment and guided by his belief in something greater than himself, Eli does what he must to survive–and continue.
Only one other man in this ruined world understands the power Eli holds, and is determined to make it his own: Carnegie (Gary Oldman), the self-appointed despot of a makeshift town of thieves and gunmen. Meanwhile, Carnegie’s adopted daughter Solara (Mila Kunis) is fascinated by Eli for another reason: the glimpse he offers of what may exist beyond her stepfather’s domain.
But neither will find it easy to deter him. Nothing–and no one–can stand in his way. Eli must keep moving to fulfill his destiny and bring help to a ravaged humanity.
MoviesOnline spoke to two-time Academy Award winner Denzel Washington about his new movie, “The Book of Eli,” which is directed by the Hughes Brothers from a screenplay by Gary Whitta. Here’s what he had to tell us about his character, working with Gary Oldman and Mila Kunis, and what it was like being directed by the Hughes Brothers:
Q: What was it about this that made you want to be producer as well? Could you talk a little about that choice?
DENZEL: Well I don’t know how we got to me being producer, but I knew that there was a lot of work to be done on the script and I knew that I needed to help do it. I just felt that this particular story – I can’t tell you why because I can’t really remember and say it was one thing — but I just felt like I needed to be a little more hands on with this one.
Q: How controversial do you expect it to be when people realize it’s about what could happen if the Bible gets into certain hands?
DENZEL: Why is that controversial?
Q: Well some people might wonder why you are saying religion has that much power.
DENZEL: (Laughs) Okay. And if they say that, so?
Q: When you read the script, did you not expect it to provoke some controversy in audiences?
DENZEL: That’s a word you’ve used three times now, so you run with that. I’ve never used that word actually. But, I think there’s nothing wrong with that debate, conversation, argument, whatever. Good. Imagine that — an idea, a thought, a point of view.
Q: You have the freedom to choose what projects you want to do. Did you draw from anything personally when you were developing your character?
DENZEL: Yeah, I’m sure. We did a lot of work, a lot of sessions with Allen and myself and my son and the writer. I walked through it page by page. We did a lot of rewrites. I’m sure a lot of that has to do with my own personal experiences. I couldn’t give you one off the top of my head, but coming off of directing, and I know how I work as a director, and I really want to flesh out and flush out the characters and I play all the parts. One day, in one of the sessions, I just came up with the idea of Gary’s character saying “Pray for me.” I mean, that wasn’t in the original script, but it just made sense to me that this guy, at the moment when it seems like he’s got everything and he’s the most evil or whatever you want to call him, and he says “Pray for me.” Does that make him more twisted? It just felt right. It’s like “By the way, between you and me, just put in a word. I know I’m not good.” (Laughs)
Q: Gary is wonderful in it. I know you had the thought of him playing the role of Carnegie. Can you talk a little about working with him?
DENZEL: I loved working with Gary. Gary’s one of the best. We had a lot of fun. Sometimes we would do the whole scene as these very Britisha€¦[using a British accent] “I need that book from you now.” (Laughs)  “Are you going to shoot me again today?” All those kind of things. But obviously, he’s the best of hisa€¦of our generation so it was a real joy when he signed on. Yes, I was real excited about that.
Q: It’s good to know that some music survives in this a little bit – at least for him.
DENZEL: Oh yeah, Al Green. That was Allen Hughes’s call, I think. That one wasn’t mine. In fact, my son had picked Incubus. If you ever seen the movie again, my head is bopping to a different beat than the music because we were actually playing a song from Incubus – something called Aqueous Transmission.
Q: Can you talk about the Japanese sword training?
DENZEL: Jeff Amata, who is a disciple of Danny Inosanto, who was a contemporary of Bruce Lee, trained me and I worked with Danny a bit, and four, five, six months out, we started stretching and moving and doing stuff with our eyes closed and just getting into the whole vibe. Stretching, when you get older, (laughs) stretching is good. I don’t do it enough but it helps a lot. Yes, it’s good stuff.
Q: Do you still practice?
DENZEL: No, of course not. (Laughs) You know, as I rub my kneea€¦ There’s a part of me that definitely wants to continue but then there’s the actor part that also says okay, I’ve got to put that down. I’m not that guy now. I’ve got to play another guy so I haven’t even beena€¦ I think I’ve been in a hotel almost 10 months this year so I’m just glad to be here for like a week.
Q: Did you get any injuries on set while making this?
DENZEL: No, nothing major. No.
Q: As a director yourself, was it odd to work with two directors?
DENZEL: Well there was such a long process working on the material that I kind of got used to it and then you start to see how they operate. Allen is more the casting people kind of guy. Albert was in New Mexico. He’s the guy with the nine rooms of graphic designers, the geek stuff. He likes all that. He’s not the communicator. They obviously know each other pretty well so they didn’t seem to step on each other’s toes. So, once you got the rhythm of it, once you knew who was responsible for what, it was not bad at all.
Q: This character seems like a departure from what you’ve done before. Was that something that attracted you to the character?
DENZEL: Maybe in a more obvious way but most of the characters I play, a lot of them, there’s been some kind of spiritual evolution. You look at them, even Malcolm X, who went from hatred to a whole completely different doctrine, or Hurricane Carter or even something as dark as Training Day, I’ve always tried toa€¦ The first thing I wrote on my script was “The wages of sin is death.” In the original version of Training Day, they didn’t evena€¦they had him dying in the smallest way. You heard about it on TV. I said “No, I can’t.” In order for me to justify living in the worst way, I had to die in the worst way. So, there was still in my mind a lesson to be learned there, or an evolution in this case. Same thing with Man on Fire, a very dark man meets this young angel who awakens him and he gives his life for her. So I guess there’s a somewhat similar theme here in that he has this mission and this mission has turned him into this violent killing machine and it’s no coincidence that at the moment he’s about to chop whoever with this hatchet, this axe, this young girls says “Stop!” I mean, why was he sent through this town right before he makes it to where he was supposed to go? He could have gone around and it would have been a whole different story. But, in his spiritual evolution, this was a part of the process. He had to go down through the valley of the shadow of death.
Q: Did you look at other post apocalyptic survival movies and were there things you wanted to do differently?
DENZEL: No, I didn’t. You know, I usually take that approach – not to look at them – so that whatever I come up with, at least in my mind, I know I came up with on my own. I don’t want to start looking at other films and go “Oh, I can’t do that.” I don’t want to be hemmed in by the possibility of doing exactly what somebody else did. So, maybe I have, but I don’t know because I didn’t look.
Q: You know like those movies where Clint (Eastwood) comes into town and he’s the stranger?
DENZEL: Oh yeah. Where was the one where he got whipped and he’s hiding undera€¦Pale Rider? High Plains Drifter? One of those. You know there is a Western vibe to this. The writer definitely said that. In fact, earlier on, there was the saloon. We sort of de-Westernized it a bit, but it is the basic ‘loner comes to town’ story. He walks in a saloon, kicks some butt, takes a name.
Q: Were there other things that you insisted that your character have?
DENZEL: We went through a million, gazillion glasses. I went to these Harley stores and we’d buy goggles. We had what we came up with that were called the sun rules, because at first he was one of the only ones wearing glasses. I said, “That’s not going to work.” So, we came up with the sun rules — that too much sun will burn your eyes so everybody’s got to wear them so we could take the smell off of him. Why is he walking around inside and outside?
Q: He does comment on the smell of the apocalypse which is a great touch to have in this movie because you can smell the bad guys coming. What did it really smell like on set? With all these people, did it smell?
DENZEL: (Laughs) No, it didn’t. There was a lot of wind blowing. There was a trippy thing that happened and it’s actually used in the movie. When I stick that sword into the first guy whose arm I cut off, I stuck the sword into him real easy, almost like a sacrifice, and the wind started blowing, and the sand blew right over us and kept going right through the tunnel and it was like death or something. And I kept on going and thinking “Ooooh, this is strange.” It just kind of blew through and then it stopped and we cut. Everybody was like, “Mana€¦.” And I said, “I think we’re on the right track here.” (Laughs)
Q: How fun was doing the great fight scenes and watching yourself on screen kicking butt?
DENZEL: It was great kicking butt. I was just like “Make sure they know it’s me. There’s no stuntmen. Make surea€¦” And he said, “Well we’re going to silhouettea€¦” “Silhouette?! Hard as I’m working, you’re not even going to show me after all of that?!” I’m like “Get closer or something! You know, it’s me. Make sure they know it’s me.” It is me.
Q: That’s all you?
DENZEL: That’s me. You know, what I learned from these masters like Danny Inosanto is he lets that energy come towards him and he goes through it. He’s like 70 some odd years old and he’s so fluid and a great fighter. I said I didn’t want to be like Karate Man. I didn’t want to finish like “Aaaaah!” I didn’t want to do any of that, but just moving through people.
Q: Do you care what people take away from your movies or do you just put them out there and let them get whatever they get from it?
DENZEL: I always say what people take away depends on what they bring to it. It’s not for me to say. That’s the way I look at it. I don’t overanalyze it or “I want them to get this” because it shouldn’t be so narrow. That’s just the way I think. You know, I know what my character wants from seeing the scene or whatever, but if I start thinking in result terms – “I want you to get this from it” – then I might start showing you something so I’ll get the result I want and maybe I’m not right.
Q: Could you talk about working with Mila Kunis?
DENZEL: She’s a sweetheart.
Q: Does she approach things differently?
DENZEL: Well, you’d have to ask her. I don’t know. I hope we do but obviously we still have the same fundamental task at hand – to play the role.
Q: I know you shot chronologically which is very unusual for a film.
DENZEL: Close to it.
Q: How important was it to you to play this chronologically?
DENZEL: That’s always nice. You know, it’s not usually the case. It’s no more important for this one. I don’t know who came up with that. Maybe the Hughes Brothers did, and they wanted to, but that’s great. I’m glad we did and were able to.
“The Book of Eli” opens in theaters on January 15th.

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