Denzel Washington says he ‘got bitter’ after losing Oscar to Kevin Spacey: ‘They don’t care about me? I don’t care’ | Hollywood

Denzel Washington is receiving rave reviews for his performance in Gladiator II. The actor, who has been part of several acclaimed movies and won several awards for his work, has reflected on his Oscar loss for a particular year. That was the year 2000, when he was nominated for his performance in The Hurricane. In a new interview with Esquire, Denzel said how he ‘got bitter’ after losing out to Kevin Spacey. (Also read: Gladiator 2 early reactions: Critics single out Denzel Washington’s performance worthy of another Oscar)

What Denzel said

During the chat, Denzel reflected on the Academy Awards night and said, “I think I had won the Golden Globe for Hurricane—see, I barely remember now, ain’t that crazy? But then, 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 gave up. I got bitter. My pity party.’

He went on to add, “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.”

Two years after this loss, Denzel finally won the Oscar for Best Actor for crime thriller Training Day. He had won the Oscar in the Best Supporting Actor category for Glory (1989). He has been nominated for the Oscar eight times.