Two-time Oscar nominee Djimon Hounsou revealed he nonetheless struggles to “make a dwelling” in Hollywood regardless of receiving crucial acclaim and awards consideration for movies massive and small.
In a current interview on CNN’s African Voices Changemakers, the Beninese-born actor — whose most-known performances embrace Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, Steven Spielberg’s Amistad, Blood Diamond reverse Jennifer Connelly and Leonardo DiCaprio and In America (the latter two which nabbed him the Academy Award nods) — stated he’s typically lowballed in terms of monetary compensation for his work.
“I’m nonetheless struggling to make a dwelling,” he stated. “I’ve been on this enterprise making movies now for over 20 years with two Oscar nominations, been in lots of blockbuster movies, and but, I’m nonetheless struggling financially. I’m positively underpaid.”
Reflecting on his breakthrough in 1997’s Amistad, through which he performed slave insurrection chief Cinqué, Hounsou alleged he was handed over for an Oscar nom due to xenophobia and racism.
“I used to be nominated for the Golden Globe, however they ignored me for the Oscars, speaking about the truth that they thought that I had simply got here off the boat and off the streets,” he claimed. “Though I efficiently did that [film], they only didn’t really feel like I used to be an actor to whom they need to pay any respect. This conceptual thought of range nonetheless has a protracted solution to go. Systemic racism don’t change like that anytime quickly.”
Hounsou, whose current credit embrace A Quiet Place: Day One, Gran Turismo and Shazam! Fury of the Gods, has beforehand talked concerning the roadblocks he faces. Talking to The Guardian in 2023, he stated he has “but to satisfy the movie that paid me pretty.”
“I’m nonetheless struggling to attempt to make a greenback! 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. I’ve gone to studios for conferences and so they’re like: ‘Wow, we felt such as you simply bought off the boat after which went again [after Amistad]. We didn’t know you have been right here as a real actor.’ If you hear issues like that, you’ll be able to see that some folks’s imaginative and prescient of you, or what you signify, may be very limiting. However it’s what it’s. It’s as much as me to redeem that.”
Forthcoming for Honsou are a sequence of thrillers: horror film The Monster from Saw franchise’s Darren Lynn Bousman, a shark movie opposite Phoebe Dynevor referred to as Beneath the Storm and claustrophobic thriller The Zealot with Kodi Smit-McPhee.
