Denzel Washington is back on the big screen this weekend in “Gladiator II,” with advance word calling his performance one of the highlights of Ridley Scott‘s long-awaited sequel. Was there any doubt the actor would steal the show? With his 70th birthday next month, Washington used his “Gladiator II” press tour to reflect on his life and career, including a long-form look back publishing in Esquire? And one of the highlights of that piece? A crushing loss for the actor at the 1999 Oscars, and how it eventually led to Washington’s sobriety.
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So, who handed Washington the loss, and when did it happen? It was the 2000 Academy Awards, where Kevin Spacey won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance in “American Beauty.” It was a stunning loss for Washington, who was also up for the award for “The Hurricane,” with many considering him the favorite. “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 recalled. “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.” But the loss did spur Washington’s drinking for the next fifteen years, even though he won the Best Actor Oscar two years later for “Training Day.” “For about fifteen years, from 1999 to 2014 when I put the beverage down, I was bitter,” Washington continued. “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.”
In fact, Washington was so embittered during that period that he refused to watch the films of other Oscar nominees with his wife Pauletta, who watches everything that gets nominated. “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.”
But Denzel isn’t caught up in his pity party anymore. He’s been sober for a decade now, and has critics and audiences raving about him for his villainous turn in “Gladiator II.” What’s next for the actor? Well, there’s more “Equalizer” sequels on the horizon, but Washington wants to work with some auteurs he’s never had the chance to, like Paul Thomas Anderson. Will it happen? At almost 70, the actor has hinted at an inevitable retirement, but let’s hope that doesn’t happen for a while yet.