Fisher, who wrote the screenplay, has given favorable reviews to Washington's efforts from the director's chair. "He loved it. He saw it and he just went on and on," says Washington. "It's got to be weird for him, seeing his life up there. He was very complimentary. I'm just glad I didn't mess it up...unless everybody's lying," he adds with a laugh.

"Every day was new. I didn't know what to expect. I got a lot of gray hairs after that. Every time I did something, it's something I never did before. I found out how much I actually know about it, just from osmosis. But one of the first things I knew was to put the best people around me and let them do their jobs. So even if I was terrible, it's going look good; it's going to all cut together nice."

While Washington edits the film, which should hit theaters in fall of 2002, the awards season struts on (he won the American Film Institute's Best Actor of the Year honor for his role in 2002's Training Day, and was nominated for both the Golden Globe and the Academy Award). Despite such attention for his work in the cop action thriller, the 48-year-old actor's future choices are unlikely to be in the action genre. "I don't like running around for two weeks without saying anything, ducking," he says. " That's not my forte. I don't care for it -- fight scenes and all, hanging off of stuff. It's just not for me. I'm getting too old for that stuff. It hurts."