Denzel Washington helped Jurnee Smollett learn that there is indeed such a thing as being “too prepared.”
Smollett, 38, recalled the helpful advice while she interviewed her The Order costar Jude Law for Us Weekly‘s inaugural In Conversation feature. She asked Law, 51, if he leans into the rehearsal process prior to the start of a project, and the actor admitted that he doesn’t want to be overly prepared before a scene.
“I love rehearsals, but then you gotta also know — I mean, I trained in theater, so for me, rehearsals are vital,” Law explained. “But the difference with rehearsing for film is you’ve gotta know when to go, ‘Right, that’s enough.’”
Smollett shared, “I’ve had that experience where I’ve over-rehearsed. … I was doing a film [where I got] to set and you go, ‘I got lost and I got nothing.’ And I was called out, I was called out for it. It was Great Debaters, Denzel Washington was our director.”
Jude Law and Jurnee Smollett Break Down ‘The Order,’ Past Roles and More
Law asked her what it was like to have Washington address her when she was 19 years old on the set of the 2007 drama —one of her first major film roles as an adult. “It was amazing. It was like a masterclass,” Smollett said. “It was a big debate scene. It was the first debate we had shot. The film’s all about debate. We’d gone to debate camp. He had us in rehearsals, debating each other.”
Smollett had all the confidence in the world when she got to set that day, but she quickly realized that she didn’t have the spark she needed. “In my head I’m like, ‘I’m gonna crush this, man. I’m gonna kill this scene.’ I get there and I was stale. I was over-rehearsed, and he knew it. He came to me and he said, ‘You over-rehearsed.’ And I was like, ‘I know. I got nothing. What do I do?’ And he said, ‘It’s OK, we’re gonna shoot everyone else and we’ll shoot you last and by then you’ll loosen up.’ And by then, I wasn’t loose, man. I wasn’t.”
With Washington’s advice seemingly not working, Smollett started to get concerned. “I was freaking out. … They do like this special shot around me and everything [and] I still know I’m not in the pocket,” she recalled.
Washington came up to her again with another piece of advice. “This is why actors who are directors sometimes are the best,” she explained. “He simply says, ‘If you’re gonna ask a question, get an answer,’ and walked away. It opened my head up.”
Smollett went on to explain that in the film her character was tasked with “debating whether or not people of color should be able to attend certain universities.”
“[My character] wanted to be a lawyer, so I would have to be able to have access to certain universities,” she continued. “It was personal. … [I was] fighting for your life. That’s how high the stakes are, is what I realized in him saying, ‘Get an answer.’”
Law said, “And it just clicks.”
“And it clicked,” she confirmed. “And the take that’s in the film now, I get emotional, [because it’s] the freaking take after he whispered that in my ear.”
“Great place to learn, right? At the hands of Denzel Washington, that’s amazing,” Law commented.
Fall Movie Preview 2024: A Guide to AlI the Must-Watch Movies This Season
“Safe place to fail big,” Smollett said.
The duo noted that The Order director Justin Kurzel was similarly intuitive. “I was thinking of Justin when you talked about that — even though he is not an actor, he had an insight,” Law said. “One of my favorite things apart from the work I did with him was watching him work with other people. Just such a natural understanding and [he] knew when to be warm and generous.”
Kindness and generosity were needed behind the scenes of the film, which follows Law and Smollett as FBI agents who go after a white supremacist group with plans to overthrow the government.
The Order is in theaters now.
Reporting by Kat Pettibone and Mandie DeCamp
