Towering Titans

Denzel Washington's got game again, but this time, it's football.

In an interview with CBS News Early Show Anchor Bryant Gumbel, the Hollywood heavy hitter says his new film, Remember The Titans, is a tearjerker that made even him cry.

The inspirational story, says Washington, "got me, and I'm in the movie! I knew what was going to happen."

Gumbel says he, too, cried from "front to finish."

The movie is based on the real life story of Herman Boone, a black football coach who was hired to replace a white coach at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia, as public schools across the nation moved to conform with a 1971 Supreme Court ruling striking down all forms of state-imposed segregation.

It was up to Boone to pull his team together despite turbulent times.
At one point in the film, the coach sums up his philosophy as he talks to his integrated team, getting ready to face that night's game.

"Tonight, we got Heyfield. Like all the other schools in the conference, they are all white. They don't have to worry about race. We do," says the coach. "But we're better for it, men. Let me tell you something: you don't let anything – nothing! – come between us. Nothing tears us apart. In Greek mythology, the Titans were greater even than the Gods. They ruled their universe with absolute power. The football field tonight – that's our universe. Let's rule it like Titans."

Washington says the film is "about the courage of these young men. It's the story about how they come together, black and white, amidst all of the adversity and the problems that surrounded them...How they learned to love each other other, how they learned to work together, which led to a state championship."

So is it really a male bonding, guy's film?

Washington says it's more a case of football as a metaphor for life.

"These (the black coach and the white coach he replaced) are really heroes. They are role models – guys who day in, day out, did what was necessary," explains Washington. "We had a screening for President Clinton and about 20 or so of the real players were there. When we were shooting (the movie), about 70 or 80 were there. (Boone) brought them all down, and they're still calling him 'coach.' "

Is there a special responsibility to portraying a real person, as Washington has done several times before, most notably in 1992's Malcom X and last year's The Hurricane?

"I didn't want to do (the movie at first) because I had just done a film about Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter," says Washington. "The last thing I wanted to do was to play another real character, a real person. (But) when I met Coach Boone...his family, and his wife...I was sold. It was a good story...young football players who helped bring this town together."

He liked it so much, he actually agreed to do it at less than his usuasalary.

That usual rate's said to hover in the neighborhood of about $12 million.