Spike Lee reveals how Denzel Washington's performance changed a key element in 'Highest 2 Lowest'

No, we didn't kill nobody

Sometimes I wanted to. And it wasn't if people on the set

Wink, wink, wink. Wake up, y'all. The king's here. We got to pay back

Buying back, stacking this record. It's a lot of money. There's more to life than just making money

It's integrity. That's what you stand for. What do you think? I think you've got to be a little crazy sometimes in this world to get what you want

King's character, for myself as a filmmaker, as an artist trying to, you know, sort of stay..

Don't say try. You're doing it. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, it's, yeah, it's, yeah, it's finding that balance between doing the work and getting paid for and doing the work that's in my heart can sometimes be very difficult

And I know that with King, to me, what I connected to is this man who was

Was. That's the word. Was. Was. Yeah. And that now, you know, and that, you know, this film is about him connecting back to his roots, connecting back to the art form and to what made him to begin with

Love to hear from you. I like to jump right here and also emphasize that scene where his wife played by Ilfenes

Padilla great there and you're on the terrace. She says look you know

That joy that you should get from music you know I don see it anymore So you know that right away you know that Denzel character David King

is going through his feelings and transitional. And look, whether you're an athlete

arch, wherever, you know, like, get to the point, like, wherever it is, too old, the ear's gone, whatever

You're not at the zenith. Right. And that makes interesting art. It's the artist condition

It's the human condition. Self-doubt. Self-doubt. It's huge. Yeah. And washed up

Even in the thing. Aether Rocky says, you're washed up. You're old

I'm not God no more, . I am. We got that generational thing, too

I just want to talk about that final scene. where... On the train

At the apartment where he's listening to her sing. Oh, yes. Yeah, and I mean, incredible

performance. And you're just... I'm seeing him reconnecting in that moment. On Denzel's face, right

Yeah, I mean, there's no one better than Denzel, but it was clear

I got a story for you. Go for it. Remember the scene where ill-finesh

She says, I don't see the joy in your face anymore. You see that in that last scene with Denzel Wash I like he come alive He reconnected with the music but even more than that

listen to this though, this is the mother**** right here. That was recorded live

Recorded live. And in the editing, I was looking at Denzel's face

And so I said, God damn it, I got it. With reaction we see in Denzel's face

He's thinking about What the orchestration is going to be So if you peep this

In the song It starts out with just piano And Yana singing

And then as we see The emotion in Denzel's face Then comes the instrumentation

You notice that? No There's no orchestra in the room on the stage

I was so in it. I didn't catch it. And that came from

Denzel Washington because he was reacting to her singing, which was live, but it was just

Aiyana singing and piano. Go to get the soundtrack. There's some point

in the song where it becomes a full blown out orchestra. Orchestration

Listen to the song Highest to lowest That's phenomenal But the reason why it's phenomenal

Is because it's the genius of Denzel Watches me in the Editor room And looking at dailies And seeing Denzel face react to her music and I saying wait a minute

He has the best ears of the business. So he's hearing this song

It's his connection to the heavens. It feels like a heavenly explosion. Yes

So I'm saying, I called Howard, the composer, I said, we got to write orchestration for this

So that came in post because we were shooting this just Aiyana and piano

That's it. That's unreal. Aiyana came from a genius of Benson Washington

because he was David King and you saw a joy come back to his

heart, to his soul and he was already in his mind thinking about how

the final product is going to be what's going to release the radio on

he's signing her and then it turns to the whole family to the end

the son he wants to cut she just declares I'm co-chairman of the label

and then they're like oh whoa whoa then he says you know what

this is family I can't do that shit then he says let's

go to work. That's the question I have for you. Can you handle it

Oh, money ain't good money