Denzel Washington Never Watched Original ‘Magnificent Seven’

The Magnificent Seven was originally a 1960 Western film that starred Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Steve McQueen, and Horst Buchholz. Now the film has been rebooted and focuses on a group of outlaws who join together to protect the town of Rose Creek in the years following the Civil War. It stars Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio, Lee Byung-hun, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, Haley Bennett and Peter Sarsgaard.

BackstageOL’s Dave Morales spoke to Washington about the film at this years Toronto International Film Festival, where the Oscar-winning actor revealed that he never watched the original version of The Magnificent Seven.

“There was really no reason to [watch] it, “ Washington said. “And I wanted to keep my slate clean and fresh…you know, you’ll see something and go, ‘I can’t do that because they did it,’ or something like that.”

The film also marks Washington’s third collaboration with director Antoine Fuqua. The actor described what it’s like to work with Fuqua:

“I’ve said this a million times: The time to worry about flying is when you’re on the ground. There’s no point worrying about it when you’re up in the air. So for an actor – for this actor – the number one priority is that I got to trust the director, and I completely trust Antoine. I don’t worry about him. I know he’s going to get it, you know. Or we’ll talk about it, whatever I can do to help him, whatever he needs to do to help me…I’ve been blessed to have two or three relationships like this over the years.”

“God willing, we’ll continue to make movies,” Washington added.

Watch the interview below:

The Magnificent Seven hits theaters Friday, September 23rd.