Ilfenesh Hadera Was Right at Home on the Set of Spike Lee’s ‘Highest 2 Lowest’

I’d love to know, given the amazing professional relationship you’ve built up with Spike over the years, when you get a new script from him at this point, how does it work? How did this project come into your life?

I mean, truly, the only difference is that it’s not coming through my reps anymore. I mean, it is, but I get a little heads-up before. I guess the telltale sign is, “When do you go back to Godfather [of Harlem]? Do you have these dates free?” And then it’s like, ooh, there’s something going on. Something’s cooking.

But it’s the same deal. I’ve never gotten an offer from Spike; you got to put the work in and earn the part. So it’s always an audition, which is totally, totally to be expected. I see it as part of the job. It’s what we do as actors. I almost prefer to audition, because then you’re on the same page. You don’t have two totally different visions for the character when you get to set. But Kim Coleman, who has auditioned me for Spike and cast Spike’s projects for at least the last 15 years that I’ve known him, cast this project. And Spike was very transparent; he said, “This is going to be Denzel’s call. He’s an executive producer on the movie. He brought me the script, and you’re his leading lady, so do your thing. Do the work.”

Oh my God.

Yeah. But our auditions were at 40 Acres [Lee’s production company], and that’s felt like home for so long that I walked in feeling like I was on familiar territory. And I felt really good about the work that I did, which is all you can ask for, coming out of an audition.

And were you already familiar with the Kurosawa film?

A still from Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low, 1963

Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection

Well, way back in our relationship, I said to Spike, “Listen, give me a list of all of your must-see cinema.” Because, I mean, my mom and dad, they watched movies—they had movie dates—but it was not a big household for cinema. And Spike gave me a list, and there was a lot of Kurosawa on that list: Ran and Rashomon and Seven Samurai. But I had never seen High and Low. And when the Deadline announcement came out that Spike was doing this reinterpretation, I immediately rushed to see it, because I thought, Let’s see if there’s a role, very selfishly. So I’d seen it prior to my audition process.