Denzel Washington’s Kids on Adapting August Wilson

It’s been a big weekend for the Washington family.

While patriarch Denzel Washington chewed the scenery on multiplex screens in “Gladiator II,” the next generation of Washingtons stormed onto streaming with the film adaptation of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize winner “The Piano Lesson.” With the Netflix film, Denzel and Pauletta Washington’s kids — director Malcolm, actor John David and producer Katia — add to both their family mythos and Wilson’s legacy.

“We’re standing on the shoulders of the Wilsonians,” John David Washington told Variety at the film’s Los Angeles premiere on Nov. 19, listing artists who’ve appeared in Wilson’s works on stage and screen, including his father, Viola Davis, Samuel L. Jackson, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Stephen McKinley Henderson and Charles Dutton.

“They showed us how to do it,” he said. “Hopefully the younger generation will be inspired by what’s possible with these words.”

Malcolm, who was named to Variety’s 10 Directors to Watch list hours before the premiere, added: “Central to this adaptation was making something accessible to young people, that they can see themselves in. Netflix is such a big platform; so many people have access to it. This is what we make this stuff for.”

It’s fitting that a real family made “The Piano Lesson” since the film is about navigating all the challenges of being kin — sibling conflict, overcoming generational trauma and determining what will ultimately define a legacy.

The plot centers on the Charles family, as brother Boy Willie (John David Washington) and sister Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler) battle over an heirloom piano, which documents the family history through carvings made by their enslaved ancestor. He plans to sell the instrument and buy the land their family toiled, while she is determined to hold onto it as the last vestige of their past. Their uncle Doaker (Samuel L. Jackson, who originated the role of Boy Willie in the 1987 production) attempts to mediate, but as the film’s synopsis explains, “Even he can’t hold back the ghosts of the past.” The movie’s ensemble also includes Ray Fisher, Michael Potts, Corey Hawkins, Skylar Aleece Smith, Gail Bean and Erykah Badu.

“The Piano Lesson” is the third film since Wilson’s estate entrusted the famed playwright’s works — a 10-play canon chronicling the Black experience across the 20th century, known as the American Century Cycle — to Denzel and his producing partner Todd Black to adapt. (The film follows 2016’s “Fences” and 2020’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”) All four Washington kids were involved — Malcolm’s twin sister Olivia is featured in a cameo, as is Pauletta.

“It’s been so rewarding to watch him step into this position with open eyes and an open heart and just succeed and thrive and fly,” Katia Washington said of Malcolm, who makes his feature directorial debut with the movie. “To be a director is not an easy task. People see the other side of it, where you’re successful, but it’s a lot of work and takes an emotional toll. I’m so proud of him.”

Virgil Williams (“Mudbound”), who co-wrote the screenplay with Malcolm, jokes, “I’m trying to get adopted. I’m trying to become a fifth Washington child.”

Williams was initiated into the Washington brood after writing the script for 2021’s “A Journal for Jordan,” which Denzel Washington directed; then the two-time Oscar winner introduced him to his son, who was developing “The Piano Lesson.” Williams was immediately impressed by how applicable Malcolm’s vision for the film was to the current generation and would be for future audiences.

“It struck me how malleable the vision was,” Williams said. “When a vision is malleable, it means that the essence remains no matter what. There was a clarity in it that was inspiring.”

Potts shared what impressed him most about the younger generation of Washingtons.

“They’re about business. They’re about the craft,” Potts said, recalling a bit of wisdom Denzel Washington shared at the 2017 NAACP Image Awards. “’Without commitment, you’ll never get started. Without consistency, you’ll never finish.’ You see that in every single one of those kids. They give credit to one another and to their parents for who they are and for what they’ve accomplished. And they work their butts off.”

To get a peek inside the premiere festivities, held at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, scroll through the photos below: