The 2001 thriller movie for which Denzel Washington finally won the Best Actor Oscar – Training Day – is now streaming on Netflix in the US. It co-stars Ethan Hawke as a rookie cop who is partnered with Washington’s corrupt detective.
Denzel Washington has gone onto make a further three movies with director Antoine Fuqua since Training Day. These are The Equalizer (2014), The Equalizer 2 (2018), and western remake The Magnificent Seven (2016). Washington was Oscar-nominated for his leading roles as real-life figures Malcolm X and Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter, but it took him playing a rare villain in Training Day for him snag the Best Actor trophy.
Washington had previously won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 1989’s war movie Glory. Set over a 24-hour period, Training Day follows Ethan Hawke as Jake, a naive and ambitious LAPD narcotics officer assigned to Washington’s experienced Alonzo Harris. Alonzo starts testing the waters with Jake, seeing how susceptible he is to bending and breaking the law. Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg have supporting roles in Training Day, which was filmed on location in South Central LA.
Training Day was at least partly inspired by the real-life Rampart police corruption scandal. Some other movies Antoine Fuqua has made without Denzel Washington include Olympus Has Fallen starring Gerard Butler, Infinite starring Mark Wahlberg, and Southpaw and The Guilty – both starring Jake Gyllenhaal.
Since Training Day, Denzel Washington has been Oscar-nominated for Best Actor a further four times – for Flight (2012), Fences (2016), Roman J. Israel (2017), and The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021). He has also directed three movies – Antwone Fisher (2002), Fences (2016), and A Journal for Jordan (2021).
Since making Training Day, Ethan Hawke has starred in Richard Linklater’s acclaimed Before Sunset, Before Midnight, and Boyhood. He recently starred in horror movie The Black Phone and Marvel series Moon Knight.
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