<Swati Sharan>

The Equalizer is based on an old TV series.  It is about an ex-CIA agent (Denzel Washington) who tries to protect a prostitute (Chloe Grace Moretz) from the Russian mob.

 Watch the video of the press conference and our questions to the panel: 

Click here for the YouTube Video

Or read what they said here:

You’ve played Malcolm X who was a real person. Then you’ve done fictional characters like the one in The Equalizer. What is the difference in preparing for these types of roles?

Denzel Washington: With someone like Malcolm X, there’s a tonne of material. I didn’t try to imitate him but captured the spirit in the materials available. I mean his albums, speeches that he made and actual footage. In a film like this for all of us, we are creating the character.

So in some ways, there’s more pressure playing a Malcolm X because everybody or a lot of people thought they knew who he was and how he should be presented. So there were 900 opinions of ‘oh he would have never done that because I was there with him that day’ or ‘that didn’t happen.’  So there’s a little bit more pressure. In a film like this or with a fictional character, you can do whatever you want to do.

Watch the movie trailer here:

For more TIFF 2014 coverage click here