“Amistad.” “Blood Diamond.” “In America.” All main blockbuster movies starring Djimon Hounsou that earned him widespread awards recognition and significant acclaim. But, in a current interview, the actor revealed he nonetheless has issue making ends meet as a working artist.
Hounsou sat down with CNN Africa not too long ago, opening up about his expertise in Hollywood in addition to how the trade nonetheless has a protracted technique to go by way of systemic racism. “I’m nonetheless struggling to make a residing,” he revealed within the clip. “I’ve been within the filmmaking enterprise for over twenty years with two Oscar nominations and plenty of blockbuster movies, and but, I’m nonetheless struggling financially. I’m positively underpaid.”
Talking about his earlier profession in Hollywood, he revealed that he felt he was “ignored” for the Oscars when he was nominated for a Golden Globe in his breakout function in “Amistad.” He defined, “I used to be nominated for the Golden Globe, however they ignored me for the Oscars as a result of they thought that I had simply come off the boat and the streets …although I efficiently did that, they only didn’t really feel like I used to be an actor to whom they need to pay any respect.”
He added that he believes the “conceptual thought of variety” nonetheless has “a protracted technique to go,” explaining, “Systemic racism gained’t change like that anytime quickly.”
As we reported, this isn’t the primary time the actor has opened up about his struggles within the leisure area. He simply mentioned final September in an interview, “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.”
This revelation is definitely a stunning one, because the actor has appeared, as we talked about earlier, in among the greatest and most critically acclaimed movies during the last 3o years. He additionally has appeared in numerous Marvel movies like “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Captain Marvel,” two movies within the “A Quiet Place” franchise, “Shazam,” “Aquaman,” … the listing merely goes on and on. The person was even in Janet’s iconic “Love Will By no means Do (With out You)“ music video again in 1990!
You’d suppose an actor with two Oscar nominations, one for “In America” and one other for “Blood Diamond,” a number of NAACP Picture Awards, quite a few SAG Award nominations, and extra wouldn’t be struggling to make a residing in Hollywood, and but right here Hounsou is, vulnerably talking out concerning the lack of alternatives in that trade to at the present time for Black actors. So far as we’re involved, Hounsou is an A-lister and shouldn’t be struggling this difficult with a resume like that.
This story initially appeared on The Root, our sister web site, on January 11.
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