Don Cheadle is not so into the Oscars
Don Cheadle was nominated for a best actor Oscar in 2005for “Hotel Rwanda,” but he’s not really keen on hanging out at the Academy Awards. “You won’t ever see me at the Oscars unless I’m presenting or I’m nominated,” Cheadle said in a recent interview. “And as soon as they don’t say my name, the game is how fast can you get out of there.”
It’s not about winning or losing for him, Cheadle said, he just doesn’t like how award ceremonies put creative work in a subjective competition.
“Just conceptually, the Oscars being a contest between artists … these are things that you really can’t compare,” Cheadle explained. “How do you compare ‘Barbie’ to ‘Oppenheimer’? They’re not even in the same world.”
The publicity work for awards after being nominated is a whole other job, Cheadle said.
“The campaign surrounding it is like, oh my God you get nominated and you’re like, that’s cool. And they’re like, OK, now you have to show up here and here and here and do this and that. You’re like, oh, wait a minute,” he said, laughing.
Cheadle spoke with CNN from the set of “Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist.”