Denzel Washington Says He “Got Bitter” After Losing Best Actor Oscar to Kevin Spacey
Denzel Washington Says He "Got Bitter" After Losing Best Actor Oscar to Kevin Spacey https://t.co/Vevsw2EVg3
- The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) November 20, 2024
Washington had already won one Oscar and scored three other nominations before that year’s ceremony, received another nomination for his role as Rubin Carter in 1999’s 'The Hurricane'.
He was up against Spacey for 'American Beauty', Russell Crowe for 'The Insider', Richard Farnsworth for 'The Straight Story' and Sean Penn for 'Sweet and Lowdown', however, the Academy Award ultimately went to Spacey.
“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. 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. I went through a time then when Pauletta 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 fifteen years, from 1999 to 2014 when I put the beverage down, I was bitter.”
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