Delroy Lindo Was “Profoundly Disappointed” Over Oscar Snub

Delroy Lindo is a veteran of the screen, but even after decades in Hollywood, the sting of an Oscar snub still cuts deep. In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, the 72-year-old actor opened up about the disappointment he felt when he wasn’t nominated for an Academy Award for his powerful role in Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods — a film that had critics and fans buzzing during the 2020 awards season.

…Everybody else was talking about it,” Delroy said, reflecting on the press tour buzz that painted him as a sure bet for an Oscar nod. “

“I try not to buy into that because, frankly, if Da 5 Bloods experience taught me anything, it’s that no Academy Award nomination, no BAFTA nomination, no SAG nomination … There was another one. There were four of ’em that completely iced both the film and me. I had my own thoughts about what that was about,” he added.

In Da 5 Bloods, Delroy starred alongside Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis, Isiah Whitlock Jr., and the late Chadwick Boseman. The movie follows a group of Vietnam War vets returning to the country years later to recover their fallen comrade and a stash of buried gold. His performance, raw and deeply emotional, was praised as one of the year’s finest.

But when the Oscar nominations came out on March 15, 2021, the film only received one nod — for Best Original Score. Delroy and director Spike Lee were left stunned. “He had just gotten off a plane, and he called me. Said, ‘Man, I just heard.’ We were commiserating,” Delroy recalled, adding, “Where we ended up was agreeing, no matter what, one must keep working. What am I going to do? Take my marbles and go home and get in the fetal position? No, I’m not going to do that.” 

And he hasn’t. Since then, Delroy has kept busy with roles in The Harder They Fall, LX 2048, and acclaimed TV shows like The Good Fight and Unprisoned. Now, he’s back on the big screen in Sinners, a supernatural thriller from director Ryan Coogler. In it, he plays a blues musician in 1932 Mississippi who crosses paths with a vampire — and stars alongside Michael B. Jordan, newcomer Miles Caton, and Hailee Steinfeld.

Though the awards may not always reflect it, Delroy’s impact on the industry is undeniable and his love for the craft runs deep. Speaking about how long his career has spun, he stated, “To have been working as an actor for the length of time that I have been working — and certainly to have been through ups and downs in my career — the fact that one is still working, the fact that audiences still apparently find what I’m doing interesting, worthy of watching, that’s not a given.”