Oscars: 5 things you didn't know about Fences

The Oscars are right around the corner, and to mark the occasion, we've gathered five fascinating facts about each of this year's Academy Award best picture nominees.

Here they are for Denzel Washington's powerful film Fences, which is up for best picture, best actor, best supporting actress and best adapted screenplay:

1. Playwright August Wilson, who penned the Pulitzer-winning play Fences, insisted that any film adaptation be directed by an African-American. "We are an African people who have been here since the early 17th century. We have a different way of responding to the world. We have different ideas about religion, different manners of social intercourse. We have different ideas about style, about language. We have different esthetics," he wrote in a stirring op-ed. "Someone who does not share the specifics of a culture remains an outsider, no matter how astute a student or how well-meaning their intentions."

2. Paramount purchased the film rights way back in 1987.

3. Wilson's original screenplay was fashioned around Eddie Murphy and James Earl Jones.

4. Producer Scott Rudin sent the screenplay to director and actor Denzel Washington, which made Washington want to read the original play. He was so inspired that, instead of making a film, he and Rudin revived the play on Broadway in 2010 and won multiple awards, including a Tony.

5. Cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen likes the look of handheld shots, but Washington wanted very few of them in the film. As a result, only three or four scenes are handheld, including when Washington's character tries to get his screaming brother out to the street, and when he comes in the house and knocks things over.

Read fascinating facts about the other best picture nominees here:

From Arrival to La La Land: fascinating facts about this year's best picture Oscar nominees

— Jennifer Van Evra, q digital staff