Three-time Oscar-winner Meryl Streep waded into the debate over the lack of diversity in Hollywood during the opening press conference at the Berlin Film Festival, explaining away the festival’s all-white jury panel by telling reporters: “We’re all Africans really.”
This year’s Oscar broadcast could be a lot less boring as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Monday that acceptance speeches can no longer contain the endless lists of “thank yous” that have become a staple at the awards ceremony.
At the annual Oscars nominee luncheon on Monday, Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs highlighted the organization’s new rule changes as a positive step to combat the diversity controversy surrounding this year’s Academy Awards. Speaking of the new rules aimed at purging the voting rights of older, white Academy members to increase diversity, Isaacs said that she had asked “the elephant in the room” to “leave.”
In an interview at the Academy Awards nominee luncheon in Beverly Hills on Monday, Sylvester Stallone said he had considered joining in the boycott of this year’s Oscars to protest its lack of diversity, but then changed his mind when he consulted the director of the film responsible for getting him there.
Demonstrators from Project Islamic Hope gathered outside the annual Academy Awards nominee luncheon at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills on Monday to protest the lack of diversity among this year’s acting nominees.
Fox News contributor and actress Stacey Dash has responded to comedian Anthony Anderson, who described her as “Ann Coulter dipped in butterscotch” during Friday night’s 47th NAACP Image Awards in Los Angeles.
While most nominees will walk away from the upcoming Academy Awards without with an Oscar, the company in charge of putting together this year’s luxurious gift bags will ensure nobody walks away empty-handed.
Host Anthony Anderson used a portion of his monologue at Friday’s 47th NAACP Image Awards in Los Angeles to address the Academy Awards race controversy, telling a room of mostly black attendees, “this is what diversity is supposed to look like.”
With controversy raging over the lack of diversity among this year’s Academy Award acting nominees, organizers of the Tree of Life Awards, informally known as the “Black Oscars,” are reportedly considering reviving the defunct awards ceremony as way of honoring the industry’s top black talent.
Four-time Oscar-winners Joel and Ethan Coen have weighed in on the renewed #OscarsSoWhite controversy, saying that while the issue of diversity in Hollywood is important, the Academy Awards itself are not.
In a new interview with Essence magazine, Oscars host Chris Rock discusses the treatment of black actresses in Hollywood, and calls out the industry’s highest-paid leading lady, Jennifer Lawrence.
Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren weighed in on both Hollywood politics and American politics in a recent interview, saying that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences should not be blamed for the renewed Oscars race controversy while simultaneously suggesting that a President Donald Trump would be “the end of America as a great country.”
Oscar-nominated actor Ethan Hawke weighed in on the #OscarsSoWhite controversy this week, telling reporters in New York “people need to be upset” about the lack of diversity at this year’s Academy Awards.
Halle Berry, the first-ever black woman to win an Academy Award for Best Actress, described the lack of diversity in this year’s Oscar nominees as “heartbreaking” on Tuesday while speaking at the 2016 Makers Conference in Los Angeles, California.
During a recent CNN interview with several “Hollywood heavyweights” about the lack of diversity among this year’s Academy Awards nominees, film director Spike Lee chided his “progressive” counterparts in the industry for not being “active” in this “movement.”
Rev. Jesse Jackson partially credits the casting of black British actor John Boyega for the financial success of “Star Wars: the Force Awakens” in an op-ed piece about “Hollywood apartheid.”
Actress Viola Davis weighed in on the #OscarsSoWhite controversy at Saturday night’s Screen Actors Guild Awards, telling reporters backstage that openness “is more important” than a boycott of the Academy Awards and lamenting what she called our “society of trending topics.”
In what is being touted as a victory for “diversity,” the annual Screen Actors Guild Awards bent over backwards to bestow as many plaudits as possible on black actors in its ceremony Saturday night, after the Academy Awards came under fire for supposedly favoring whites.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has responded after reports surfaced that the black cast members of the hit NWA biopic ‘Straight Outta Compton’ did not receive invitations to the upcoming Academy Awards.
Comedian and actor Kevin Hart unloaded on Twitter Thursday, after one of his followers accused him and fellow actor Marlon Wayans of making “stereotypical” black movies.
White actor Joseph Fiennes defended a British TV station’s decision to cast him as Michael Jackson in an upcoming TV movie, telling Entertainment Tonight on Wednesday that his skin tone is a close match to the late black pop singer.
President Obama reacted to the controversy sweeping the Oscars after critics complained that not enough people of color were nominated this year for important categories.
Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton has weighed in on the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, saying in a recent interview that the recent rule changes implemented at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to promote diversity were “overdue.”
Actor Stephen Furst, who is best known for playing the role of Flounder in 1978’s “Animal House,” has accused the Academy of “ageism and sexism” in choosing to “scapegoat” its older white male members “in order to deflect the criticism about the lack of diversity” in this year’s all white acting nominees.
Fox Searchlight Pictures has landed a record-busting $17.5 million deal for the rights to distribute black filmmaker, writer, and producer Nate Parker’s “Birth of a Nation,” a biopic about Nat Turner, the former slave who led a 48-hour bloody slave rebellion over his white masters in 1831.
Veteran actor Danny Glover told industry publication Variety on Tuesday that the film industry might find it beneficial to move away from “subjective” awards shows, such as the Academy Awards.
Actress Gina Rodriguez has launched a new social media campaign to promote Latino actors in an effort to increase diversity both in the entertainment industry and at the Oscars.
Selma Director Ava DuVernay, who was mostly snubbed from last year’s Academy Awards, said during an event for the Sundance Film Festival on Sunday that she hates the word “diversity.”
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has posted a new Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section on its website in response to mounting criticism from longtime members over the organization’s recently announced diversity initiative, which many see as an overt effort to purge older Academy members of their voting rights.
In an open letter addressed to Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs published in the Hollywood Reporter, AMPAS executive branch member Mark Reina responds to the sweeping new rule changes implemented by the Academy in an effort to increase diversity both within the organization and at the Oscars.
Adding his name to the growing list of celebrities who’ve decided to downplay the Academy’s lack of black nominees is singer Will.i.am, who is calling the controversy “a waste of energy.”
Amid Hollywood’s latest diversity scandal, Legendary Studios is courting controversy with the announcement that blue-eyed, blonde-haired Englishman Charlie Hunnam will play the role of Mexican-American drug smuggler Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez Villarreal in an upcoming film.
Veteran actor Sir Ian McKellen has weighed in on the ongoing Academy Awards diversity controversy, saying in a recent interview that criticism of the Academy is “legitimate” and that, in addition to African-American actors, other minority actors have also been marginalized or ignored by the film industry, including gays.
Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen has weighed in on the Academy Awards’ diversity controversy, saying in a recent interview that he hopes the film industry will look back at this year’s Oscars as a “watershed moment” for diversity in film.
Actor and rapper Nick Cannon chimed in on the Oscars controversy with a two-minute rap video urging his fellow black entertainers to not be “distracted” by “fake gold and plastic.”
Responding to the controversy surrounding this year’s all white Oscar nominees, Oscar-winning actor Matt Damon told reporters at the Sundance Film Festival this weekend that Hollywood has a “long, long, long way to go” in regards to becoming more racially diverse.
Longtime members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) are speaking out after the organizations’ Board of Governors voted unanimously Thursday to approve a dramatic overhaul of its voting rules and organizational structure in an effort to increase diversity at the Oscars and across the broader film industry.
In an open letter, Milton Justice, an Oscar winner for the 1986 documentary ‘Down and Out in America’ and a member of the documentary branch, weighs in on the #OscarsSoWhite controversy and the Academy’s just-announced membership changes.
Former Oscar-nominated actor Don Cheadle is excited to see Chris Rock host this year’s Academy Awards, saying in a recent interview that he wants to see the comedian “take everybody to task” over the renewed #OscarsSoWhite controversy.
Chris Rock will remain host of this year’s Academy Awards and is re-writing his jokes to focus on the diversity controversy that has swirled around the awards show, a producer at the Oscars confirmed in a recent interview.