Djimon Hounsou is opening up in regards to the difficulties he’s confronted touchdown roles post-Oscar nominations.
Whereas talking with The Guardian in an interview printed on-line Thursday, the Shazam! Fury of the Gods actor, who was nominated for an Academy Award in 2002 for In America after which once more in 2006 for Blood Diamond, mentioned he “felt severely cheated.”
“As we speak, we speak a lot in regards to the Oscars being so white, however I keep in mind there was a time the place I had no help in any respect: no help from my very own folks, no help from the media, from the trade itself,” he confessed. “It felt like: ‘You need to be completely satisfied that you just’ve received nominated,’ and that’s that.”
Hounsou began to make his identify in Hollywood when he landed a task in Steven Spielberg’s 1997 movie Amistad. However he defined that he began to develop annoyed with the restricted components that had been being supplied to Black actors.
To at the present time, he mentioned he’s “nonetheless struggling to attempt to make a greenback” within the trade. He continued, “I’ve come up within the enterprise with some people who find themselves completely effectively off and have little or no of my accolades. So I really feel cheated, tremendously cheated, by way of funds and by way of the workload as effectively.”
Since his Oscar-nominated movies, nearly all of the roles Hounsou has performed embody smaller and bit components in films like Guardians of the Galaxy, Livid 7, Charlie’s Angels and a handful of initiatives within the Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC Universe.
“I’ve gone to studios for conferences they usually’re like: ‘Wow, we felt such as you simply received off the boat after which went again [after Amistad]. We didn’t know you had been right here as a real actor,’” he mentioned. “Whenever you hear issues like that, you possibly can see that some folks’s imaginative and prescient of you, or what you signify, could be very limiting. However it’s what it’s. It’s as much as me to redeem that.”
