Ethan Hawke has revealed that Denzel Washington once paid him the highest compliment on the Training Day set by wishing to be part of Hawke’s best scene. The memory surfaced during a recent interview, where Hawke also promoted The Lowdown Season 2 on FX and Hulu. Training Day arrived in 2001, and Hawke still recalls it with the glow of a man who survived a very loud workday.

While most actors collect praise from critics, Hawke collected a review straight from a movie legend, delivered through a monitor, and the scene behind it is worth a closer look.

Denzel Washington gave Ethan Hawke his biggest compliment by watching a Training Day scene from the monitors and wishing to be in it. The scene left Hawke with a b******* mouth courtesy of Cliff Curtis, which makes the review feel earned.

“The highest compliment I ever got from Denzel is he’s watching this on the monitor,” Hawke told John Feitelberg on Scene Stealers.

He then added that Washington asked, “Why am I not in the best scene in the movie?”

On the Scene Stealers podcast, Hawke said the Training Day crew was all in on chasing The French Connection, since strong cop dramas had been rare for a long time. Antoine Fuqua had only one other film behind him, yet Washington took a big chance on him, and Fuqua crushed it. One actor even brought his parole officer to set and improvised a line that scared Hawke senseless.

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Hawke collects compliments from legends easily, but a different kind of praise keeps dodging him, and his explanation is funny.

Ethan Hawke called himself a loser during GQ’s One More Question because no festival jury has ever handed him a single prize. Zach Baron brought up the numbers during the sit-down, and Hawke answered with modest mischief. His résumé includes five Oscar nominations, three for acting and two for writing the Before films. Hawke blamed envy for keeping him from the prize, then cheerfully joked that five nominations sound really cool.

Hawke explained why jury prizes outshine Oscar glory, pointing to Juliette Binoche, who collected acting prizes at Cannes, Berlin, and Venice. Those wins need no campaigning, and the film does not have to be a hit. The Oscars, he noted, carry far more big business. He also avoids feeding the hunger for praise, since fanning it is dangerous. Still, the best review of his career needed no campaign, only Denzel Washington watching a Training Day scene and wishing he were in it.

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What are your thoughts on Denzel Washington praising Ethan Hawke’s Training Day scene? Let us know in the comments.