Denzel Washington says he 'got bitter' after losing Oscar to Kevin Spacey: 'My pity party'

The "Training Day" actor finally won the Academy Award for Best Actor two years later.

When it comes to Academy Awards, they say it's an honor just to be nominated — but back in 2000, Denzel Washington really wanted to win.

The Gladiator II actor said as much while reflecting on his career for Esquire, where he opened up about losing the Best Actor race to Kevin Spacey. That year marked Washington's fourth Oscar nomination, for his role in Norman Jewison's The Hurricane, and although he'd previously taken home a statuette for 1989's Glory, he had yet to snag a win in the Best Actor category.

In the end, Washington's name wasn't called, and Spacey took home the honor for his role in American Beauty. So Washington had himself a "pity party."

"I have a memory of turning around and looking at [Spacey], and nobody was standing but the people around him. And everyone else was looking at me," Washington said. "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."

Washington admitted that the sting of that particular loss stayed with him. "I'm sure I went home and drank that night. I had to," he said. "I don't want to sound like, 'Oh, he won my Oscar,' or anything like that. It wasn't like that."

Related: Denzel Washington admits he made 'some real clunkers' in the '90s: 'I had responsibilities'

When Oscar season rolled back around, Washington had no interest in watching the films and submitting his votes as an Academy member. Though his wife, Pauletta, made sure to catch up on that year's qualifying films, Washington declined.

"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,'" he said. "I gave up. I got bitter. My pity party."

Referencing his decision to get sober, he added, "For about fifteen years, from 1999 to 2014 when I put the beverage down, I was bitter."

But while the sting stayed with him for a decade and a half, it was just two years after the 2000 loss that Washington finally won the Academy Award for Best Actor, for the cop drama Training Day. The victory made him the second Black actor to win in the category, after Sidney Poitier's 1963 win for Lilies of the Field.

Washington has gone on to earn four more Oscar nominations in the category, for Flight; Fences; Roman J. Israel, Esq.; and The Tragedy of Macbeth. The latter marked Washington's 10th overall nomination, making him the most-nominated Black actor in Academy Awards history.

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Earlier this year, his Training Day costar Ethan Hawke recalled losing his own Oscar race in the same year that Washington won Best Actor. Hawke was competing in the Best Supporting Actor category and ultimately lost to Jim Broadbent for his role in Iris. According to Hawke, it was Washington who helped him accept the result, by leaning over to whisper that it's better to lose the Oscar anyway.

"You don't want an award to improve your status. You want to improve the award’s status," Hawke said, explaining Washington's perspective on the matter. He added, "I think when all is said and done, he's the greatest actor of our generation. The Academy Award has more power, because Denzel has a couple. It didn't elevate who he was."