Denzel Washington revealed in a newly-unearthed interview that his infamous “flogging scene” in “Glory” left the actor who was charged with whipping him reluctant to perform the task.
Washington, 69, spoke about the scene in a 1999 interview with “60 Minutes.” Audio of the interview was included in Tuesday’s episode of “60 Minutes: A Second Look,” the podcast produced by the CBS news show that takes listeners into the “60 Minutes” vault.
Focused on Washington, the episode aptly titled “The Gladiator of Acting,” (Washington stars in “Gladiator II,” which hits theaters Friday), pulls excerpts from three interviews Washington gave the program over the past 25 years.
In Washington’s first “60 Minutes” interview, he spoke of “Glory,” Edward Zwick’s 1989 Civil War drama about the first all-Black regiment in the US military, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. In the film, Washington played an escaped slave, Private Silas Trip, opposite Matthew Broderick, Morgan Freeman and Cary Elwes.
Talking with late “60 Minutes” broadcaster Ed Bradley, Washington revealed how he prepared for the scene in which his character is flogged because he went AWOL to find shoes for other Black soldiers.
“Basically what I did was, got on my knees and sort of communicated with the spirits of those who had been enslaved — who had been whipped. And when I came out, I was in charge,” he told Bradley.
“I said, ‘Trip was in charge.’ I said, ‘If this is what Trip, if this is what you men, if that’s what you call yourselves, want to do to Trip, then come with it.’”
Of actor John Finn, who played Sergeant Major Mulcahy, the character who flogs Trip, Washington recalled Finn’s averse reaction to his marching orders.
“The guy that was whipping me didn’t want to hit me,” the star said in the “60 Minutes” interview. “I said, ‘Come on, do it.’”
Washington also remembered Matthew Broderick, who played the regiment’s commander Col. Robert Gould Shaw, struggling during the scene.
“My focus stayed on Matthew, and I even remember him putting his head [down], I said, ‘Don’t put your head down,’” Washington shared. Broderick’s character was the one in the film to order the whipping.
“You know, you want to whip me, bring it,” Washington added. “That’s what came to me, that’s what I played.”
Washington won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for the film. In his acceptance speech, the “Gladiator II” star paid homage to the 54th regiment, “the black soldiers who helped to make this country free.”
He would win a second Oscar in 2002 for Best Actor for his role in “Training Day.”
The actor also discussed filming the scene in a 1989 New York Times profile.
“Whipping, it’s a very basic nightmare in American history, but it was tougher on the others than it was for me,” he said at the time. “They realized that this is the way it was. It sickened them. The guy who was doing the whipping eased up on me – I had to tell him, ‘Look like you’re really doing it!’”
In 2016, Zwick revealed the advice he gave Finn when whipping Washington with a felt whip: “Just don’t stop.”
The scene has continued to have an impact over the years. In 2019, Michael B. Jordan told Washington that his scars in “Glory” inspired his character in “Black Panther.”
