S Poddar
Denzel Washington would today reveal the emotions that hit him when he lost the Best Actor Oscar to Kevin Spacey at the 2000 Academy Awards. Washington was nominated for his role as Rubin Carter in The Hurricane, which had catapulted him to unprecedented accolades and a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama. The Oscar, however, went to Spacey for his role in American Beauty.
Washington was part of a competitive field that year, battling against Russell Crowe (The Insider), Richard Farnsworth (The Straight Story), and Sean Penn (Sweet and Lowdown). As he remembered that evening, he discussed the night with Esquire magazine candidly. “At the Oscars, they called Kevin Spacey’s name for American Beauty,” Washington remembered. ” I remember turning around, looking at him, and there was no one standing but the people that were with him. And everyone else was looking at me. Not that that is how it was. Maybe that is how I saw it. Maybe I felt everybody looking at me. Because why would everybody be looking at me? Thinking about it now, I don’t think they were.”
Washington admits that loss left him with mixed emotions. “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, it gets talked in town what is happening over there on this 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.”
By 2000, Washington had won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role in 1990’s Glory. He had also been nominated for Best Actor in 1993 for his performance in Malcolm X, but lost to Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman. But even at this point, he had already lost the Oscar for The Hurricane.
He spoke candidly about how the experience affected his relationship with the Oscars: “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,'” he said. “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 drink down, I was bitter.
He even turned a defeat into his victory. Just two years after losing to Spacey, Washington won the Best Actor Oscar for his electrifying performance as Alonzo in Training Day. He won at a big level, and the entire globe knew where he stood: in the heart of Hollywood’s powerful actors.
Since then, Washington continued to receive accolades for his work, garnering four more Best Actor nominations. His candor in discussing his battles and moments of self-doubt speaks to the resilience in this otherwise remarkable journey in the film industry.
