Yahoo Lifestyle Denzel Washington Got Brutally Honest About Losing An Oscar To Kevin Spacey In 2000, And Why It Took Him Years To Get Over It
Denzel Washington recalled the tough experience of losing out on an Oscar to Kevin Spacey nearly 25 years ago.
For context, in the run-up to the 2000 Academy Awards, Denzel and Kevin were among those vying for the Best Actor Oscar after delivering critically acclaimed performances in The Hurricane and American Beauty, respectively.
Also nominated for Best Actor that year was Russell Crowe for The Insider, Richard Farnsworth for The Straight Story, and Sean Penn for Sweet and Lowdown.
Two months before the Academy Awards, which took place on March 26 that year, Denzel won the Golden Globe — which, if you didn’t know, is often a good indication that they’ll get the Oscar, too. However, that was not how things panned out on the big night.
Recalling the moment they called Kevin’s name at the Oscars, Denzel recently told Esquire: “I have a memory of turning around and looking at him, and nobody was standing but the people around him.”
Jeff Kravitz / FilmMagic, Inc, Timothy A. Clary / AFP via Getty Images
Denzel — who, at this point, was already a three-time Oscar nominee and one-time winner — recalled that as Kevin went up to collect his award, everyone’s eyes were on him instead. Or, at least, “that’s the way [he] perceived it.”
“Maybe I felt like everybody was looking at me,” he considered. “Because why would everybody be looking at me? Thinking about it now, I don’t think they were.”
Elsewhere in the Esquire story, Denzel opened up about his past struggles with alcohol and how it negatively impacted his life. And while recalling his disappointment over the 2000 Oscar loss, Denzel said he likely turned to alcohol to manage his emotions.
“I’m sure I went home and drank that night. I had to,” he said, adding: “I don’t want to sound like, Oh, he won my Oscar, or anything like that. It wasn’t like that.”
“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,” he said, seemingly referring to the sexual assault allegations Kevin faced later in his career, which he has since vehemently denied.
“I ain’t got nothing to do with that. I pray for him,” he went on. “That’s between him and his maker.”
Two years later, Denzel won his long-awaited second Oscar for his performance in Training Day. However, that didn’t mean he quickly let go of the bitterness over his loss in 2000.
In fact, Denzel told Esquire that there was a period of time in his career when he held so much resentment toward the Academy that he got his wife Pauletta to watch all the nominated movies and vote on his behalf.
“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,” he said.
“I gave up. I got bitter. My pity party,” he added. “So I’ll tell you, for about fifteen years, from 1999 to 2014 when I put the beverage down, I was bitter.”
You can read "The Book of Denzel" from Esquire here.
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