When Ethan Hawke lost the 2002 Academy Award for best supporting actor for his performance in Training Day, his co-star Denzel Washington offered him sage advice about winning—and losing—awards. “It’s better that you didn’t win. Losing was better,” Hawke recalled Washington leaning over to tell him at the Oscars during a recent interview on Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?.
Hawke, who lost to Jim Broadbent for Iris and would go on to lose three other Oscars—two for best adapted screenplay and another for best supporting actor in 2015’s Boyhood (Whiplash’s J.K. Simmons won that year)—recalled Washington’s next words of wisdom. “You don’t want an award to improve your status,” the actor reportedly told Hawke. “You want to improve the award’s status.” Hawke went on to say that he believes “The Academy Award has more power, because Denzel has a couple, adding, “It didn’t elevate who he was.”
The same night Washington gave Hawke advice, he collected his second Academy Award—winning best actor for Training Day after a victory in the best supporting actor category for 1989’s Glory. After comparing Washington to baseball giant Babe Ruth, Hawke said, “When all is said and done he’s the greatest actor of our generation.”
And once that year’s awards show ended, Hawke had absorbed Washington’s perspective on Hollywood’s highest honor. “I was at the Oscars sitting next to Denzel Washington and nominated against Ian McKellen,” he concluded. “I had already won. It was impossible for me not to see it any other way.”