The Ties That Bind

After scoring tony awards for their performances in the broadway revival of fences, denzel washington and viola davis reunite for the on-screen adaptation of august wilson’s seminal work about family, friendship and the bitter sting of lost dreams.

- Regina R. Robertson

TROY: It’s not easy for me to admit that I’ve been standing in the same place for 18 years.

ROSE: Well, I’ve been standing with you. I gave 18 years of my life to stand in the same spot as you!

When Denzel Washington’s and Viola Davis’s characters spoke those gutwrenching words in the movie trailer for Fences, a collective gasp reverberated across the Internet. That heated, passionate exchange between husband and wife, which was penned by the late Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright and screenwriter August Wilson, made the anticipation for the stage-to-screen adaptation boil over.

Days later, at New York Street on the Paramount Pictures Hollywood studio back lot, Washington and Davis are being photographed for their ESSENCE cover. They greet each other with an embrace, two air kisses and a knowing nod. There’s clearly a mutual respect, a mutual admiration, between them. It was evident when they shared the Broadway stage in 2010 and it still is now as they share the big screen again. Fences is the third film Washington’s both starred in and directed. The others are 2007’s The Great Debaters and his 2002 directorial debut, Antwone Fisher, which also featured Davis in a small but pivotal role. Both of their résumés have expanded a great deal since then. She has won a Tony (her second) and nabbed two Oscar and four Golden Globe nominations, and currently stars on the prime-time favorite How to Get Away With Murder, for which she earned an Emmy. As for Washington, he’s continued to put in the work, as he’s always done. He’s led blockbusters like American Gangster, The Equalizer and