Winning an Oscar is a big deal, but Denzel Washington thinks sometimes it’s better not to win one.
‘Training Day’s Ethan Hawke didn’t win for Best Supporting Actor at the 2002 Oscars. As per Variety, he recently recalled what Washington shared with him as a piece of advice:
“‘It’s better that you didn’t win. Losing was better. You don’t want an award to improve your status. You want to improve the award’s status.’ That’s the way he thinks. That’s what I’m talking about playing with Babe Ruth. The Academy Award has more power because Denzel has a couple. It didn’t elevate who he was.”
Hawke has been up for an Oscar four times, and he played alongside Washington in ‘Training Day.’ Washington won the Best Actor award that night, but Hawke did not win his category. It appears the actor didn’t see this as a loss for him.
He Sees Washington As One of the Bests
Hawke said working with Washington is like playing baseball with Babe Ruth because he’s quite an important name in the industry:
“When all is said and done, he’s the greatest actor of our generation.”
He also added that acting with Washington showed him there’s a lot to learn in acting:
“Denzel, you know, his imagination is so complete. I imagine it would be interesting to see how Babe Ruth tied his shoes. You know how he thought about various pitchers. But what creates that is a tremendous amount of energy and thought, right, what creates those moments and once you see somebody working that way, it is like entrance there’s all these other rooms that you can go into in the profession. And that was really inspiring to me to see my chosen profession done at that level.”
Hawke says he still felt like a winner at the Oscars. Now, he is busy with new projects. He directed a movie called ‘Wildcat,’ and it started showing in theaters in the U.S. on May 3.
