Denzel Washington has said he initially felt he was miscast in the 1995 detective drama "Devil in a Blue Dress", where he played the film's straight-laced hero rather than its more colourful villain. He recalled realising, while watching Don Cheadle's scene-stealing turn as the character Mouse, that he had been given the "wrong part" and had never been offered villain roles, prompting a shift in how he approached his career.

That frustration proved formative: six years later, in 2001, Washington took on the role of corrupt LAPD detective Alonzo Harris in "Training Day", relishing the chance to play a genuinely dark character for the first time in nearly 30 films. The performance won him the Best Actor Oscar in 2002 and paved the way for further morally complex roles, including drug kingpin Frank Lucas in Ridley Scott's 2007 film "American Gangster", which earned Washington a Golden Globe nomination and the film a Best Picture nod.