After all, Washington had never done a Western. And there are big shoes to fill: Yul Brynner led an immortal cast (including Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson) in the original 1960 tale of gunslingers banding together to save a Mexican village from marauding bandits.
At lunch, Fuqua painted the whole picture of Washington dramatically riding over the hill on a black horse. He even played a hip-hop version of an Ennio Morricone Western theme to set the heroic mood.
It worked.
“Denzel just smiled and said, ‘All right, let’s do it,' ” Fuqua recalls. “I walked out of the restaurant and said to myself, ‘Denzel Washington is getting on a horse for The Magnificent Seven.' "
It’s not just Washington who is saddling up for Fuqua's remake, but an all-star cast which includes Chris Pratt, Vincent D’Onofrio and Ethan Hawke (the latter officially making it a reunion of 2001's Training Day).
The modern retelling rides into theaters Sept. 23 and releases its first trailer online Wednesday, revealing a black-hatted Washington with some serious sideburns and a mustache. The look was Washington’s idea, which shocked fans when he stepped out for the 2015 Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather fight while starting to grow it out. That became an Internet thing.
“We went to that boxing match in Vegas, and people were seeing Denzel with the chops and were like, ‘What’s going on?’ “ Fuqua says. “I was saying to myself, 'Wait till they see him in full glory.' He looks great. Denzel just locked into that look."
Washington also took horseback riding lessons and bonded any and everywhere with his bounty-hunter character's nickel-plated Colt .45 Peacemaker.
“He had it with him all the time, even when he wasn’t on the set,” Fuqua says. “We’d have meetings and he’d be spinning and twirling his gun while we were talking. He used to walk around his house spinning guns, go to restaurants. Obviously, people knew it was for his character.”
Hawke rides alongside as the Civil War sharpshooter Goodnight Robicheaux, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. Pratt, as the charming gambler Josh Farraday, was so amped to be riding in the crew that he kept a positive perspective, despite soaring temperatures on the set in New Orleans.
“It'd be 110 degrees and even the horses wouldn't do what you wanted them to do," Fuqua says. "I’d check in and ask Chris, 'You good?' And he’d say, ‘Let’s do this baby, I’m in a Western.' ”
The gang of misfits who come together for this Magnificent Seven is a diverse one, from its African-American leading man to South Korean star Byung-hun Lee, Mexican actor Manuel Garcia-Rulfo and Native American Martin Sensmeier. That was important for Fuqua, but the killer attitude was paramount.
“These guys are gunslingers, and when they walk into the room, you notice them,” Fuqua says. “These are people you want to be with, or you want to protect you.”
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