Spike Lee and Denzel Washington on a Reunion Making “Highest 2 Lowest”

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, David, Books, Arts, Storytelling, Wnyc, New, Remnick, News Commentary, Yorker, Politics

4.2 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 15 August 2025

⏱️ 24 minutes

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Summary

The director and the actor discuss their latest collaboration, nineteen years after their previous film together. “Time flies!,” Lee says. “I didn’t know it had been that long.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:09.0	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Spike Lee and Denzel Washington first worked together in 1990. They were relatively early in their careers, and the movie was more better blues.
0:22.3	Washington starred as a trumpet player, scrambling to make a living in jazz clubs, and Lee played his manager.
0:29.6	Gee, you're doing a half-ass job, man.
0:33.4	You okay to deal. You told me to get you the dog, and I did.
0:36.5	I got you the best turns possible at the time. You understand if you do it on the back and down the deal. You told me to get you the dog and I did. I got you the best turns possible at the time.
0:38.3	You understand if you do it on the back and down the line. Well this is down the line. And I'm working on it. Well, you ain't working hard enough. I think you're taking advantage of you. How can you say that? We grew up together. I'd rather chop off my lap hand and take advantage of you. You're my boy. Hey, look, this is about more than friendship, G.
0:36.3	I'm breaking my friggin' neck to you.
0:38.3	Does it look like I'm rich? off my left hand and take advantage of you. You're my boy. Look, this is about more than friendship, gee.
0:55.1	I'm breaking my friggin' nephew. Does it look like I'm rich?
0:58.2	The mind's been talking to.
1:01.8	Washington and Lee, actor and director, have collaborated with some frequency,
1:06.0	Malcolm X and many other films. But Inside Man, the last film together was almost two decades ago.
1:11.8	So highest to lowest is kind of a reunion.
1:15.8	Washington plays a music mogul targeted in a kidnapping and ransom plot.
1:20.3	And the film is inspired by Akira Kurosawa's film High and Low from 1963.
1:26.5	Last week, I had a chance to talk with Spike Lee and Denzel Washington.
1:32.9	Spike, we spoke a couple of years ago, and you were telling me that for she's got to have it,
1:37.3	you borrowed from Kurosawa's Rashamon, the way different perspectives complicate the narrative and so on.
1:43.6	Why did you go to high and low as kind of source material and inspiration for the new movie?
1:51.0	Well, first of all, I got to ask to it, but my brother right here, Denzel Washington,
1:55.7	that's how this whole thing happened.
	...

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