Two-time Oscar winner Pedro Almodovar has said Will Smith’s Oscars acceptance speech was “more like that of a cult leader”.
The Spanish director said he refused to let the altercation between Smith and comedian Chris Rock be “the protagonist of the evening” and that it had produced in him “a feeling of absolute rejection”.
Almodovar’s film Parallel Mothers earned its star Penelope Cruz a best actress nomination at the 94th Academy Awards.
Describing his experience of the night he said he had been sitting “barely four metres” from the incident, in which Smith took to the stage and hit Rock over a joke at the expense of his wife Jada Pinkett Smith.
“I have deliberately avoided the violent episode that is the only thing talked about the next day. I was barely four metres from where it happened,” he wrote.
“I refuse to let that episode mark the gala and be the protagonist of a ceremony where many more things happened and of much greater interest.
“Still, as I said, I was very close to the protagonists. 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.”
Smith won the Oscar for best actor for his role playing the father of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams, in King Richard.
In his tearful speech, Smith apologised to the Academy and his fellow nominees, and spoke of the importance of protecting family.
He said fellow best actor nominee Denzel Washington had minutes before told him “at your highest moment be careful, because that’s when the devil comes for you”.
“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,” wrote Almodovar.
“The devil, in fact, doesn’t exist. This was a fundamentalist speech that we should neither hear nor see.”
Almodovar has previously won Oscars for Best Foreign Language film in 1999, and best original screenplay for Talk To Her in 2002.