Denzel Washington admits he became bitter after not winning the Oscar for The Hurricane

Last Updated on November 25, 2024

Denzel Washington is about to grace us with his new villain character in Gladiator II, where he looks to be having the time of his life. He’s currently doing the promotional blitz as the Ridley Scott sequel hits theaters soon. Washington would whet everyone’s appetites with some of his planned projects after Gladiator II. Black Panther 3 is something interesting that he revealed is on his radar when he explained, “I played Othello at 22, I’m now going to play it at 70. After that, I’m playing Hannibal. After that, I’ve been talking with Steve McQueen about a film. After that, Ryan Coogler is writing a part for me in the next Black Panther.”

Esquire recently did a profile piece on Washington as he promotes Gladiator II and the iconic actor gets very candid and honest about certain struggles he faced during his career. A revelation included how he his escalated drinking of wine slowly influenced his behavior, especially when he became bitter about not winning the Oscar for his performance in 1999’s The Hurricane. Washington 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.”

He continued, “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 [with Spacey], 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.”

Washington also admitted to turning his back on the Academy at that time, “I went through a time then when [his wife] 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. I don’t even know offhand what movies I made then—I guess John Q, Manchurian Candidate. But I didn’t know I was bitter.”