Following BlacKkKlansman and Tenet, the former football player and leading man teams up with Zendaya and Euphoria creator Sam Levinson for Malcom & Marie, coming to Netflix in February. The trio speak here with Andrew Goldman for WSJ. Magazine
Like so many ingenious creations of the Covid era, Netflix’s Malcolm & Marie was born out of boredom and fear. Last spring, Euphoria creator Sam Levinson and its star, Zendaya, were getting restless inside their quarantine cocoons. Season two of their popular HBO drama had been shut down in March. One night, during one of their almost daily check-ins, the pair hatched a breakout plan, one that would ultimately depend on a co-conspirator, John David Washington.
Levinson, 36, had facilitated an escape for Zendaya once before: By casting the now 24-year-old as Euphoria’s Rue and entrusting her to portray a character inspired by many of his own experiences as a drug-addicted teen, Levinson helped her to transcend her past as a Disney Channel star.
In September, she became the youngest woman to win the Emmy for best lead actress in a drama series for her role. Could Levinson write a movie they could make together? One that they could shoot on the cheap and in strict deference to the strict Covid-19 production rules? After some mulling, Levinson hit on it: What about a character piece that had the DNA of some of his favorite dialogue-driven relationship movies like Scenes from a Marriage and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? And, recalling the beloved Playhouse 90 series from the late ’50s, perhaps it could even be shot in black-and-white. Levinson began feverishly writing Malcolm & Marie, a screenplay concerning a marathon late-night argument between a soon-to-be celebrated young film director, Malcolm, and his girlfriend, Marie.
For their Covid project, Levinson tapped the 36-year-old Washington, who in 2020 had the misfortune of having a potentially career-defining role in a big-budget film arrive at a moment when theaters all over the country were shuttered.
For the last two weeks of June, Levinson, Zendaya and Washington (who all invested their own funds in the production of Malcolm & Marie and served as producers) plus a pared-down crew on hiatus from Euphoria descended on the Caterpillar House on 33 acres in Carmel, California, to film an epic romantic battle that begins with the couple’s arrival home following Malcolm’s film premiere, where he’d neglected to thank Marie, whose former addiction was an inspiration for his screenplay. On the eve of Malcolm & Marie’s streaming premiere on Netflix in February, back in the safety of their respective homes, the trio reconvened to discuss the fruit of their pandemic movie camp.
John David Washington (JDW) on being reluctant to follow in his father Denzel’s footsteps:
“I always wanted to do what he did, always wanted to be an artist,” Washington says. The long shadow of his father, however, loomed. “I jumped in and hid in this football persona, this athlete, literally putting on a helmet to hide my face, hide my identity,” he says.
JDW on keeping his audition for Ballers a secret from his dad:
He kept his 2014 audition for Ballers a secret from his father until he learned he’d landed the role of NFL wide receiver Ricky Jerret. “I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do it,” Washington says. “I’ll never forget how he expressed how proud he was of me. That was a great moment for me.”
JDW on the pandemic forcing him to relocate to his family home in LA with his parents:
“I was going to stay in Brooklyn,” he says. “[Then] my agent was like, ‘Oh, you need to get the heck out of there. Get to L.A.; the world’s coming to an end.’” Before he knew it, Washington found himself in his old room, one he hadn’t lived in since high school.
JDW on Malcolm & Marie:
“When [Malcolm & Marie] came along, it felt a bit like this might be the last thing I’ll ever get to do,” he says. “I went to that dramatic [place]. I was like, this is survival, but hey, if this is the last thing I get to do, I truly believe in it. I went from the biggest-budget film in my career [Tenet] to the lowest-budget film within a six-month time frame.”
Zendaya on JDW’s performance in Malcolm & Marie:
Now, becoming very close with JD, and knowing the kind of lovely, kind, calm person that he is—I’m just blown away with his work. It’s a f—ing performance, because that is not the John David I have grown to know. I don’t know where he went and how he did it, but it was incredible to watch. And I definitely think it helped me as an actress. It challenged me to work a little bit harder to match where he was.
JDW on exploring different characters:
As an actor, we don’t want to be boxed in. We don’t want to just be a spy in a spy thriller; we also want to play a villain. We don’t just want to just be a superhero. We want to play the antihero too.
Zendaya on the roles Sam Levinson has created for her:
This beautiful character of Rue—I don’t know if she is me in a different life. I don’t know if she’s my little sister. But I have a very close, special connection to her. She’s Sam, but she’s also a little bit of me in there. I found that Rue’s specific experiences may be different, but there’s a lot of similar emotional things. I care about her really deeply. I always feel like: There’s a little bit of hope if Sam turned out the way he turned out, which is an incredible person, [so] maybe Rue will be OK. And when it comes to Marie, I like to think that Sam was writing it for the person he has been able to know as I’m growing as a young woman. Maree is my middle name. She’s not necessarily me, but she was written for me. It’s very special.
JDW on how he and his character Malcolm deal with confrontation differently:
I keep the peace. I use full diplomacy. I don’t like confrontation. I think that the beauty about the relationship is, at least for Malcolm, some of his best material is probably coming from the confrontation, from their exchanges. But no, personally, I would not operate the same way Malcolm does in any kind of relationship.
