Denzel Washington’s sons, John David and Malcolm, explore legacy in ‘The Piano Lesson’ with Danielle Deadwyler
Denzel Washington’s kids — John David Washington, Malcolm Washington and executive producer Katia Washington — worked together to film “The Piano Lesson.”
Storied actor Denzel Washington has taken on the project of adapting August Wilson’s cycle of 10 plays that portray slices of Black life in each decade of the 1900s. But it is Washington’s kids — John David Washington, Malcolm Washington and executive producer Katia Washington — who have taken the baton for “The Piano Lesson,” one of Wilson’s two Pulitzer Prize-winning works.
John David, a Golden Globe-nominated actor in his own right, stars alongside “Till” star Danielle Deadwyler. Malcolm, John David’s brother, makes his directorial debut in the film, set in the 1930s during the Great Depression.
Boy Willie (played by John David) has come to Pittsburgh from Mississippi with a truck full of watermelons he intends to sell. But he’s really there to cash in on the family’s prized piano, a priceless heirloom kept in his sister’s home, to buy the land of the man who once enslaved his family.
Standing in his way is his sister Berniece, portrayed by Deadwyler, who refuses to sell the piano. For the mother of one, the piano, with the faces of their ancestors carved into it, is their family legacy. And though she will not play it, she cannot let Boy Willie sell it.
Skylar Smith as Maretha in “The Piano Lesson.”Brian Douglas / NetflixJohn David told NBC News he was pulled to “The Piano Lesson” because “I needed to find myself. It was forcing me to answer questions I maybe have been avoiding for a long time within myself — with my spirituality, with my faith, with my upbringing.”
Rating: 5