Actress Claims Denzel Washington Ruined a Movie That Could Have Been a Hit

Kelly Lynch once opened up about her time working with Denzel Washington on the 1995 sci-fi action movie Virtuosity, saying that the actor’s influence over the production changed what could have been a great film.

Speaking to The A.V. Club, Lynch explained that the movie originally had “a wonderful script,” but claimed that Washington’s creative decisions led to major rewrites that, in her view, hurt the final result.

She described the film’s director, Brett Leonard, as inexperienced and suggested that Washington stepped in to take control of the project.

“When actors feel like there’s not a real captain of a ship, they can feel like, ‘I have to take this project under my wing, and I have to fix it, because no one is minding the store,’” Lynch said. “That’s the kind of feeling Denzel had, I think.”

According to Lynch, Washington rewrote parts of the script, changing her character’s role entirely. Instead of being the main character’s romantic interest, her character was turned into a “hostage-type” figure, which she said she “absolutely hated.” She also claimed that Washington took some of her dialogue and gave it to his own character, Parker Barnes.

Lynch went on to say that Washington wanted to remove the romantic storyline because he didn’t believe audiences at the time were ready to see a Black man in a relationship with a white woman.

“It made me very sad,” she said. “Not only as an actress, because it totally turned the movie into a piece of cr**, but… I get that Denzel got a little bit afraid of everything, and I’m sure he believed what he was saying, although I think he’s wrong.”

Virtuosity, released in 1995, starred Washington alongside Russell Crowe in a futuristic story about a cop facing a virtual reality killer.

Despite a strong cast and an estimated $30 million budget, the movie received poor reviews and earned only modest box office returns. Critics described it as messy and uninspired, though Washington’s performance was often praised.

While Lynch didn’t hold back in her criticism, Washington’s reputation in Hollywood has only grown since then. Still, her comments shed light on how creative control and behind-the-scenes decisions can dramatically change a film’s direction, and not always for the better.

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