Who is the best living actor? If one were to ask that question to a room of 100 people, there’s a chance that you could get 100 different answers, as the world is populated with not only a great number of brilliant performers, but also a great number of takes on what it means for an actor to be “the best.” For Spike Lee, however, there is really only one correct response to the query, and it’s Denzel Washington – though he knows that friend and filmmaking colleague Martin Scorsese would disagree.
The legendary director of Do The Right Thing made his thoughts on the matter known recently in an interview with Vulture, having just had the chance to work with the Oscar-winner actor on his new drama Highest 2 Lowest. On the subject of Denzel Washington’s potential nearing retirement, Lee was asked if he felt that their latest collaboration serves as “a fitting potential capstone” to their many years of working together, an he explained his grander thoughts about their partnership:
It’s historical. It’s monumental. ‘D and Lee.’ Bleek Gilliam in Mo’ Better Blues. Malcolm in Malcolm X. Jake Shuttlesworth in He Got Game. And Keith Frazier for Inside Man. No disrespect to anybody else, but for me, Denzel’s the greatest living actor. And that’s just my opinion, you know? You ask Scorsese, he’s going to say [Robert] De Niro. Francis Ford Coppola would probably say [Marlon] Brando.
To be totally fair, Marlon Brando has been out of the “greatest living actor” conversation since he passed away in 2004… but the debate of Denzel Washington versus Robert De Niro for the title is a hefty one. Both have spent decades unleashing some of the best performances of all time in some of the most incredible movies of all time – with features directed by both Spike Lee and Martin Scorsese on the list. Perhaps what is needed to provide a proper answer to the matter is for De Niro to make a movie with Lee and for Washington to make a movie with Scorsese (it’s actually kind of crazy that neither collaboration has ever happened).
As referenced by Lee, it was back in 1990 that he first had the chance to work with Denzel Washington, as the star played trumpeter Bleek Gilliam in the drama Mo’ Better Blues. What is arguably their greatest collaboration came next, with Washington playing the eponymous role in 1992’s Malcolm X, and the power of He Got Game in 1998 and the awesomness of 2006’s Inside Man followed.
It’s been nearly two decades since Spike Lee and Denzel Washington worked together, but their latest is in theaters now. Highest 2 Lowest is a reimagining of the great Akira Kurosawa classic High And Low that sees Washington play David King – a legendary music producer facing a powerful moral conundrum. After a kidnapper abducts the son of his employee/closest confidant (Jeffrey Wright) thinking that it’s King’s child, he must make the decision to mortgage his own family’s future to pay the ransom.
Washington’s work in the movie really only furthers Spike Lee’s argument – and if you can’t presently see the film in a theater near you, know that it will be streaming soon. Those with an Apple TV+ subscription will find Highest 2 Lowest available from the service starting on September 5.