Golden Globe Winner Gary Oldman Has Long Hated the ‘Meaningless’ Award Show: ‘Boycott the F*cking Thing’
Zack Sharf
Gary Oldman won the first Golden Globe of his career this year when he was honored with the Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture Drama trophy for his lauded turn as Winston Churchill in “Darkest Hour.” The actor made sure to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press when accepting the award, but it was only four years ago that he was bad-mouthing the organization and encouraging people to boycott the Golden Globes. A 2014 interview between Playboy and Oldman is going viral in the wake of the actor’s Globe win, and in it Oldman fires off against the Globes.
“[It is] a meaningless event,” Oldman said years ago. “The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is kidding you that something’s happening. They’re fucking ridiculous. There’s nothing going on at all. It’s 90 nobodies having a wank.”
“Everybody’s getting drunk, and everybody’s sucking up to everybody,” he continued. “Boycott the fucking thing. Just say we’re not going to play this silly game with you anymore. The Oscars are different. But it’s showbiz. It’s all showbiz. That makes me sound like I’ve got sour grapes or something, doesn’t it?”
The Playboy interview was hardly the only time Oldman made his extreme distaste for the Golden Globes public knowledge. Back in 2012, Oldman accepted the Empire Award for Best Actor thanks to his performance in “Tinker Tailor Solider Spy,” which was not honored with a nomination by the Golden Globes. Oldman told reports backstage at the event that he was pleased fans voted on the Empire Award since it meant it “wasn’t political.”
“Specifically, I’m talking about the Globes,” he said at the time. “Which I think is bent to be honest with you. There’s always a bit of that involved, people talk about the ‘sympathy win’ or someone will get something for their body of work rather than that role. The Oscars and BAFTAs, the voting and all of that is pretty straightforward. But the Globes, the foreign press, is a whole different thing.”
Something tells us Oldman probably doesn’t feel the same way today after winning the Best Actor trophy for “Darkest Hour.”
