Denzel Washington got an Oscar nomination for his role in 1999’s ‘The Hurricane’ in 2000, but the award went to Kevin Spacey for ‘American Beauty.’
The actor looked back on his reaction to the loss in a recent chat with Esquire, sharing, “At the Oscars, they called Kevin Spacey’s name for ‘American Beauty.’ I have a memory of turning around and looking at him, and nobody was standing but the people around him. And everyone else was looking at me. Not that it was this way. Maybe that’s the way I perceived it. Maybe I felt like everybody was looking at me. Because why would everybody be looking at me? Thinking about it now, I don’t think they were,” he added.
“I’m sure I went home and drank that night. I had to. I don’t want to sound like, ‘Oh, he won my Oscar,’ or anything like that. It wasn’t like that. And you know, there was talk in the town about what was going on over there on that side of the street, and that’s between him and God. I ain’t got nothing to do with that. I pray for him. That’s between him and his maker,” he continued.
“I went through a time then when [my wife] Pauletta [Washington] would watch all the Oscar movies — I told her, I don’t care about that. Hey: ‘They don’t care about me? I don’t care.’ You vote. You watch them. I ain’t watching that. I gave up. I got bitter. My pity party. So, I’ll tell you, for about 15 years, from 1999 to 2014 when I put the beverage down, I was bitter.”
Washington won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1990 for ‘Glory,’ but ‘The Hurricane’ was his only second nomination for Best Leading Actor after the 1993 nom for ‘Malcolm X,’ which he lost to Al Pacino. Two years later, he finally won Best Actor for his role as Alonzo in 2001’s ‘Training Day,’ and since, has received four more nominations in the category.
The actor will next appear in Ridley Scott’s ‘Gladiator II,’ playing a merchant keeping gladiators for entertainment. The movie premiered in Sydney, Australia, in October and is set to release in the U.S. on November 22.
