The Academy Awards recognized Denzel Washington’s contributions to cinema twice now. But Washington considered the possibility that winning the Best Actor award for his role in Training Day may have assisted another Oscar winner.
Why Denzel Washington felt he maybe helped Jamie Foxx win an Oscar for ‘Ray’
Washington was already used to having Oscar gold by the time Foxx took home his Best Actor award. Apart from Training Day, his first Oscar win came in 1989. There, he won a Best Supporting Actor award for his performance in Glory. But he made notable history with his Training Day performance. At the time, Washington became the second black actor to win a Best Actor award.
Since then, four other black actors have won the coveted prize. Foxx became the third when he won for Ray back in 2005. In a resurfaced interview with The Guardian, Washington seemed to express great pride in Foxx’s win. Washington confided that unlike other Oscar-winners that came as a shock, everyone knew Foxx’s Ray performance was Oscar-caliber.
“What Jamie Foxx did in Ray was phenomenal, it couldn’t be denied,” Washington said. “I think Forest [Whitaker] winning was a bit more of a surprise. Jamie was almost a phenomenon – he was Ray,” he said.
He also agreed that Washington’s own previous Oscar victory could’ve motivated the Academy to pay more attention to Foxx.
“The fact that I’d won a couple of years earlier, maybe that did help for white voters to say: ‘Hey, look at Jamie Foxx over here,’ when they may not have prior to that. I don’t know. But maybe…maybe,” he said.
Jamie Foxx felt he was different from past Oscar-winners
Although Foxx joined a special class of Oscar-winners after his win, he felt there were some noticeable differences between them. Foxx didn’t follow the same path as the others did to reach the Oscar stage. He started off as a comedian, with some of his earliest performances being in sketch comedy shows like In Living Color.
After his success in comedy, Foxx managed to branch out by doing dramas and action thrillers. Foxx also still felt firmly connected to his roots, which also made his Oscar win seem more surreal.
“Because it’s like this: Halle and Denzel are supposed to win the Oscars. Speedy and I were always just a couple of Wet Willies with cops harassing us. You know how our folks are: When one of us wins, we all just want to celebrate,” he once said in an interview with Oprah.
Foxx also fancied himself as more accessible to non-celebrities than his predecessors, which further made him stand out among his peers.
“But with me, you know, like I was down in Miami right after at Wet Willie’s, you know, crackin’ jokes…I’m able to talk about things to those guys that maybe some of the other Oscar-winners couldn’t talk about it. So, I was giving them stories — especially about the after-parties,” he said.
Jamie Foxx felt his Oscar win was special because of Ray Charles
Many actors win Oscars after tackling tragic or troubled characters. But Foxx felt grateful that his Oscar win came from portraying the exact opposite. He felt Ray Charles’ story was inspirational and heartfelt, and that made Foxx’s Oscar victory even sweeter.
“Winning the Oscar was probably the most joy artistically a person could have,” Foxx once told ABC News. “Because Ray Charles was celebrated. That movie was celebrated in such a way that everybody could get around it. It was a healthy character. It wasn’t a tragic character. It was a redemptive character.”
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