TIFF 2016: Diversity Buzz For TIFF's Opening Film Is Accidental, Cast Says

Lead actor, Denzel Washington, was blunt at the news conference for the Toronto International Film Festival's opening film, The Magnificent Seven. 

 "I've never seen the original."

Washington, who won an Academy Award for Training Day, one of three films he made with The Magnificent Seven director Antoine Fuqua, said he didn't watch the 1960 classic because he wasn't sure how it would help him play the main character of Chisolm.

The A-list actor was flanked by co-stars, Byung-hun Lee, Vincent D'Onofrio, Ethan Hawke and the only woman in the film, Haley Bennett. They were asked about some of the issues plaguing Hollywood right now, in particular about releasing a film with a diverse cast in a time of racial tension in the U.S. Side-stepping the question, the stars agreed they were just interested in making a good movie.

The director of The Magnificent Seven, Antoine Fuqua, says he wasn't trying to make a statement about racial diversity with his remake of the 1960 classic. (Craig Chivers/CBC)

Fuqua credited big Hollywood studios MGM and Sony for saying 'yes' to the cast he wanted. "Is Hollywood changing? You gotta give the studio credit when they do something like this. This becomes the new definition of what a western is," Fuqua said.

He added that another version could cast women exclusively, though the director says he never intended for the film to become a touchstone on diversity.

"I just wanted to see Denzel Washington on a horse. I didn't think about colour. I didn't think about it as an event. It wasn't to make a statement," Fuqua said.

 For its day, the 1967 version — itself a remake of Akira Kurasawa's The Seven Samurai — had a star studded cast, including Russian-born Yul Brenner, German Horst Buchholz and American Steve McQueen.

But non-white stars were conspicuous by their absence and like many westerns of its day it didn't reflect the American west it supposedly depicted.

 "The villain was a white guy dressed up as a Mexican," quipped actor Ethan Hawke, who plays Goodnight Robicheaux in the film.

Fuqua says it's the actors who bring relevance to his remake. "It's a very diverse cast, a very strong cast and the story makes it relevant."