antwone fisher

Bunting today," Denzel Washington groans theatrically. "We been buntin'." The afternoon is grinding to a close on the Sony Studios lot in Los Angeles, and Washington hasn't made any grand advances in editing "The Great Debaters," a 1930s period piece that marks his second effort behind the camera and the follow-up to 2002's widely admired "Antwone Fisher." Instead, he's spent eight hours slogging away in a beige, windowless room littered with spent water bottles and a sad plate of muffins. Dressed in dad-casual workout clothes, the 52-year-old star swivels contemplatively in an office chair, absorbed by his work in progress.

Seeing him like this presents a Hollywood kind of paradox. One of the prime pleasures of watching Washington over the past two decades ― the years since his breakout performance as the anti-apartheid activist Stephen Biko in 1987's "Cry Freedom" and his Oscar-winning turn in "Glory" ― has been marveling at his self-possession. The key to his superstardom, more important than his send-the-ladies-swooning looks, is his restraint in revealing only the subtlest shades of what's on his characters' minds. So it's an odd sensation to watch him in that familiar situation ― lost in thought ― but with his charm on pause. He almost appears to be a regular guy.

Almost. "It's a very tedious process, as you see," Washington tells me, as if loving the tedium. Then he unleashes a laugh that suggests he knows how to amuse himself and enjoys the abrupt flourish of his charisma. You know the laugh well, a quick explosion followed by a warm and swaying cackle, his easy demeanor enveloping the righteous core of someone raised by a Pentecostal minister.