The following questions and answers are excerpted from a conversation that followed the NBR screening of Highest to Lowest.

Your relationship with Akira Kurosawa dates back to the beginning of your career. Can you share how you first encountered Kurosawa’s work and what drew you to reimagine it?

Spike Lee: People always assume that this film is a remake of Kurosawa’s High and Low, but it actually began with Ed McBain’s novel King’s Ransom. I once met Kurosawa in Tokyo; he signed a piece of calligraphy for me with a paintbrush, and that moment stayed with me as a reminder of the master’s generosity. Years later the script found its way to Denzel Washington. He called me from an unfamiliar number, told me he had something I needed to read, and sent it overnight. Before I’d even hung up the phone I knew I was going to direct—it had been nineteen years since we collaborated on Inside Man, and the idea of reuniting excited both of us. When we sat down for the first read‑through it was as if no time had passed; that shorthand allowed us to take a classic story and bend it to our own rhythm. I kept thinking about how John Coltrane could take a song like ‘My Favorite Things’ and make it his own without losing respect for the original. That was our goal. We weren’t interested in a shot‑for‑shot remake. We approached this adaptation like jazz musicians: you know the melody, but you riff, you improvise, and you make it yours. And because Denzel and I have that Batman‑and‑Robin partnership, we trust each other to try things you wouldn’t attempt with anyone else.

imagine doing that while holding a bag of ransom money

One of the most electric moments in the film is the confrontation between David King and a young hustler, which feels almost like a rap battle. How did that come together on set?

S.L.: That scene was scripted as an argument, but on the day Denzel surprised all of us by quoting verses from Nas’s Nastradamus. A$AP Rocky rolled with it, trading bars and energy like two MCs. I didn’t know Denzel was going to bring those lines; neither did Rocky. You watch two artists…a legend and a rising star…pushing each other in real time. It becomes a high‑noon showdown: the camera holds steady as they fire off words, and you feel the tension mount without a single cut. Rocky isn’t a seasoned screen actor, but he stood tall opposite Denzel, and that courage shows on screen. The scene lifts the whole movie because it’s alive. This is our fifth film together, and Denzel understands that sometimes you have to break the script open to find the truth. Rocky matched him beat for beat, and that improvisation gives the confrontation real juice. Afterward people asked if it was choreographed; it wasn’t. It was two performers trusting the moment and respecting each other’s craft.

The sequences set during the Puerto Rican Day Parade and the ransom drop are some of the most gripping in the film. Can you talk about blending music, sports and New York culture to build that tension?

S.L.: Eddie Palmieri and his band performed live in those scenes—there was no playback, no safety net. They were supposed to do one or two takes, but Eddie was having so much fun that we let him play eight or nine times, and he kept adding flourishes. He passed away just before our premiere, so those performances are especially precious now. I wanted the audience to understand that the kidnapper isn’t some caricature: he’s smart, demanding Swiss francs instead of dollars because he knows they’ll be easier to handle in a ransom drop. To raise the stakes, I set the drop on a weekend when the Yankees were playing the Red Sox and the Puerto Rican Day Parade was sweeping up the Bronx. If you’ve ever taken the 4 train to Yankee Stadium on a game day you know that feeling of being pressed shoulder‑to‑shoulder as fans pour in—now imagine doing that while holding a bag of ransom money. We scouted the roller‑skating park near Yankee Stadium and blocked out how to weave the parade, the band, and the ransom hand‑off together. I went up to the Blue Note to convince Eddie to join us and promised to keep his cameo a surprise so the moment would feel organic. All of these details—the live salsa, the parade floats, the rivalry—situate the thriller within the rhythms of New York. People tell me it’s a ‘great New York movie,’ and I take that as a compliment because the city itself is a character with its own music and pulse.

The film ends on an amazing musical sequence featuring a new performer singing a haunting song. When did you conceive of that final scene and how did you find the singer?

S.L.: New York used to be a magnet for artists from all over the world, but it’s become so expensive that a lot of creatives can only be discovered online. When I read the script and saw that the closing music hadn’t been specified, I knew it was my job to find a voice that could carry us home. I spent about an hour a day scrolling through Instagram looking for musicians and poets; that’s how I found Aiyana-Lee Anderson, a singer whose tone reminded me of Lauryn Hill, and a guitarist [Jensen McRae] who some people call ‘the Black Joni Mitchell.’ I flew to Los Angeles, met them both and asked them to write songs for the film. We recorded their performances live on set with the crew working quietly around them. In the editing room we noticed that when Alana sings, the camera lingers on Denzel’s face and you can see how deeply the song moves him. Denzel has an incredible ear—he grew up listening to Quincy Jones and knows how music can shape a scene—so he suggested we add subtle orchestration under her voice. That choice lets the audience hear the song the way David King hears it: first as an unadorned voice, then with arrangements that swell as his emotions swell. Technology brought us these artists, but the live recording grounds it in reality. To me that scene encapsulates what filmmaking can do: bring together story, music and performance so you leave the theatre feeling like you’ve been somewhere.