“As an Academy member, I would love to see a more diverse voting membership”, she concluded.
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Reign says the overall goal is to increase diversity and inclusion in film and in the Academy, and that while Friday’s announcement is proof of some of that becoming a reality, it’s not enough.
Smith said he didn’t know that his wife was going to post a Facebook video announcing her own boycott of the Oscars. “I was happy to be married to that woman”.
Smith has previously been nommed twice for best actor, for 2001’s “Ali” and 2006’s “The Pursuit of Happyness”. Mark Ruffalo, nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Spotlight, made it clear in a recent interview that the issues that he believes the Academy has with diversity are actually part of a much larger problem within American culture. “It was her call to action, for herself, and for me and for our family to be a part of the solution”.
The filmmaker Spike Lee has also said he will skip this year’s awards show. Now, there’s another heavyweight joining the call – Will Smith.
Smith, who some thought might be nominated for his performance in the football drama “Concussion”, said his decision was “deeply not about me”.
Roberts asked Smith to respond to people who “who feel the only reason she made those remarks is because she was upset that you didn’t receive a nomination”. Penelope Ann Miller, who starred in The Artist and Carlito’s Way, spoke to THR and said that “to imply that this is because all of us are racists is extremely offensive”.
“It reflects a series of challenges that we are having in our country at the moment, there’s a regressive slide towards separatism towards racial and religious disharmony and that’s not the Hollywood that I wanna leave behind”.
“I don’t want to be lumped into a category of being a racist because I’m certainly not and because I support and benefit from the talent of black people in this business”.
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The lack of diversity in the Academy Award nominations has set off a wave of different responses across Hollywood. For the second year in a row, the 20 acting nominees are all white.
