How Denzel Washington Improvised Famous Training Day Line

As hard as it may be to believe, Denzel Washington’s legendary, Oscar-winning film, “Training Day,” is about to celebrate its 25th anniversary on Oct. 5. While it’s become a cult classic film now, you may be surprised to know that one of the most iconic scenes was entirely made up by Washington himself.

That’s right, we’re talking about his infamous “King Kong ain’t got sh*t on me!” moment that Washington yells out near the end of the film. If you’ll remember, at that point, his crooked cop character Alonzo Harris has finally been busted for all his dastardly deeds and is being confronted and held at gunpoint by those he’s wronged in his community.

But right before he finally gets what’s coming to him, he shows one more huge sign of bravado (and arguably delusion) by screaming at everyone and lobbing threat after threat in an attempt to get them to back off.

“I’m putting cases on all you b*tches. You think you can do this sh*t—Jake! You think you can do this to me?” Harris says. “You motherf*ckers will be playing basketball in Pelican Bay when I get finished with you. Shoe program, nigga. 23-hour lockdown. I’m the man up in this piece! You’ll never see the light—who the f*ck you think you f*c king with?”

He continues: “I’m the police! I run sh*t here! You just live here! Yeah, that’s right, you better walk away. Gon’ and walk away ’cause Imma burm this motherf*cker down. KING KONG AIN’T GOT SH*T ON ME!”

While most of us can say that monologue as easily as we can the alphabet, what most people don’t know is that the entire scene was heavily improvised in the moment by Washington. The “King Kong” line, specifically, wasn’t even in the script.

“That line, ‘King Kong ain’t got nothin’ on me,’ I made that up. The character’s ego—he just did not think he could lose. That was his problem,” Washington revealed in an interview with GQ Magazine in 2012.

Director Antoine Fuqua also corroborated that incident, explaining in a 2020 interview with Vanity Fair that Washington just started “going off” during the scene and they decided to keep the cameras rolling.

“The King Kong moment came out of Denzel. I remember that moment because we were doing the scene, and he just started going off. I remember looking at the cameraman and saying, ‘I hope you got that, because I don’t think we’re going to get that again,’” Fuqua recalled.

He continued: “Denzel came over to me and goes, ‘Whoo, I don’t know where that came from.’ It was exhausting for him; you saw him just go there in that place. It was one of those moments where it gave you chills. We shot anamorphic lenses, so anamorphic lenses are really sensitive to making sure everything’s in focus. My focus puller came up to me afterwards—his hands were shaking.”

Talk about a classic, one-of-one moment from Washington, right? We should also note that on Oct. 14, “Training Day” will be returning to select AMC theaters in honor of the anniversary. So, if you’re in the mood to shout out the scene with fellow fans, check out upcoming showtimes here. Shoutout to you, Mr. Washington!

Straight From