Cuba Gooding Jr. ‘will be surprised’ if ‘The Butler’ gets Oscar love

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share via Email
• Copy Link

  Link Copied

Tomorrow morning the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announces its Oscar nominees.

There have been several consistent forerunners this awards season including 12 Years a Slave, Gravity, American Hustle, and The Wolf of Wall Street.

Lee Daniels’ The Butler entered awards season as a frontrunner for best picture, best supporting actress (Oprah Winfrey), and best actor (Forest Whitaker). However, the film was completely shut out by the Hollywood Foreign Press for Golden Globe Award nominations.

Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. who appeared in The Butler says that he hopes his co-stars Oprah Winfrey and Forest Whitaker receive Academy Award nominations tomorrow morning.

“I hope they recognize Oprah and Forest’s performances, because their wonderful,” Gooding told theGrio’s Chris Witherspoon. “But if they don’t, it [The Butler] was a successful and powerful film about the civil rights movement and you can’t deny the critical praise that we got. You can’t deny the box office that we did. It’s another movie that proves that black films do sell foreign. I think we’re at $160 million.”

“I’m the kind of pragmatist, if I wake up tomorrow and we got nominated I’ll be pleasantly surprised, but I’m not gonna be pissed if we don’t. You can’t really live your life in that negativity.”

Stay tuned for part 2 of theGrio’s interview with Cuba Gooding Jr. where he opens about his new film, Life of a King, which hits theaters January 17.

Follow Chris Witherspoon on Twitter for more entertainment news at @WitherspoonC