Jorge Hinojosa
SPANISH director Pedro Almodovar has described how witnessing Will Smith slapping Chris Rock over a misguided joke about his wife’s alopecia provoked ‘a feeling of absolute rejection’ in him.
Almodovar wrote about the incident in a diary on his experience at attending the awards ceremony, for which his film Parallel Mothers was nominated for two Oscars, that was published on the film review website Indiewire.
The diary details his week in Hollywood when he was casting for his next project and his first feature length English language film which is set to star Cate Blanchett.
In between deliciously indiscrete revelations about Kenneth Brannagh scouting for a part in his next film and gripes about America’s tendency to over use the air-conditioner he reveals his thoughts on what has become the most talked about moment in the Oscars’ long history.
He reveals that he had a ringside seat and was ‘barely four metres from where it happened’.
“In the general overhead shots, I am the little white head you see in the photo,” he revealed.
“What I saw and heard produced a feeling of absolute rejection in me. Not only during the episode, but afterward, too, in the acceptance speech — a speech that seemed more like that of a cult leader,” he wrote.
“You don’t defend or protect the family with your fists, and no, the devil doesn’t take advantage of key moments to do his work,” he said in reference to the advice Smith said he received from Denzel Washington.
“The devil, in fact, doesn’t exist. This was a fundamentalist speech that we should neither hear nor see.”
He added his dismay that the incident had become such a huge talking point on ‘the faceless monster that is the social media’.
His diary, which he admitted he wrote while waiting to be picked up and taken to the airport for a flight back to Madrid, concluded on a lighter note in which he urged everyone to ‘go back to the cinemas’.
READ MORE:
- Spain’s Pedro Almodovar to make first feature film in English and with Cate Blanchett in lead role
- Oscars adds ’fan favourite’ prize voted by Twitter after several Spanish blockbusters were snubbed for Best Picture
- Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz: Spain’s golden couple both nominated for Oscars as 2022 Academy Awards list revealed
