Did you ever wonder who chooses the clip that is shown at the Academy Awards ahead of each nominated actor when their name is read in their category? We can tell you this much, the actors aren’t the ones who choose it. More often than not, they are surprised by the selection, caught off guard by an awkward scene that’s shown out of context, or isn’t powerful enough to justify why they were chosen for an Oscar nom. But that wasn’t the case for Ethan Hawke.
Hawke was a nominee in the Best Supporting Actor category for Training Day, and when the time came for his name to be read, they used the clip of his character, a police officer, being shoved into a bathtub with a shotgun in his face. It’s one of the most intense scenes in the entire film, and one that actually made Hawke’s co-star, Denzel Washington, a little jealous. While guesting on CinemaBlend’s official podcast, ReelBlend, Ethan Hawke shared some stories about the filming of that unforgettable scene, telling us:
I remember about that day, particularly, Denzel stopped by the set and he watched for a little while, and he went, ‘Damn! I'm not in the best scene in this movie.’
Not that it mattered. Denzel Washington was in plenty of other incredible scenes in Training Day, and it’s likely that his delivery in the “King Kong ain’t got shit on me” scene won him the Best Actor trophy that year. If it came down to the battle of clips, however, Ethan Hawke swears he would have won, because he knew, in that moment, that the bathtub clip was the perfect scene to showcase, and captured the tension of the movie beautifully. He said:
I remember that clip because I was like, ‘Fuck, that's a good clip! (laughs)’ You know the whole world's watching. And sometimes, somebody gets announced for an award, and they show some clip, and it seems kind of insipid, and uninteresting. And I thought, ‘If it was a competition for best clip, I won!’
He didn’t win. The Best Supporting Actor trophy that year ended up going to Jim Broadbent for Iris, a movie everyone is still talking about, all of the time. Right? Yeah, not exactly. But I do remember this scene.
And so does Ethan Hawke. Make sure that you listen to his entire appearance on the ReelBlend podcast. He discusses his latest film Zeroes and Ones, and even opens up a little bit about joining the MCU for the upcoming series Moon Knight. It’s a good listen!
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