After making waves on Broadway with Fences, Denzel Washington is bringing August Wilson‘s Tony-winning play to the big screen this fall. As director, producer, and star, Washington reteams with Viola Davis in the story about a stern father dealing with race relations and personal trauma in the 1950’s. Ahead of a Christmas day release, Paramount has now released the first full-length trailer which shows off more of our supporting ensemble and the powerful-looking story.
“Denzel said that August writes music: You have to follow the thought groups and the breath groups,” star Stephen McKinley Henderson tells Variety. “If you do the thought groups, but don’t play the punctuation … you can’t do that. I studied with Lloyd Richards, the great director, and he would often say, “Get rid of a few of those periods. Then you’ll find the music — then it will flow.” Also, because August wrote lengthy [plays], you have to make sure you’re moving the language along. If that happens, the audience doesn’t realize how much time has passed. But if you’re not obeying the punctuation, you can find audiences saying, “This is a long evening.” It’s the same play, but it’s a different experience.”
Also starring Jovan Adepo, Russell Hornsby, Mykelti Williamson, and Saniyya Sydney, check out the trailer below.
Troy Maxson, is a strong man, a hard man. He has had to be to survive. Troy Maxson has gone through life in an America where to be proud and black is to face pressures that could crush a man, body and soul. But the 1950s are yielding to the new spirit of liberation in the 1960s, a spirit that is changing the world Troy Maxson has learned to deal with the only way he can, a spirit that is making him a stranger, angry and afraid, in a world he never knew and to a wife and son he understands less and less.
Fences opens December 25th.