Diversity controversy did not impact Oscar nominations: Octavia Spencer

Octavia Spencer speaks at the 48th annual NAACP Image Awards at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium on Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017, in Pasadena, Calif. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP)

Hidden Figures star Octavia Spencer believes last year’s #OscarsSoWhite controversy had nothing to do with the diversity in nominations this year. The Academy-award-winning actress, who has nominated again this year for NASA movie “Hidden Figures”, says films generally take more than a year to make so it is unlikely that the controversy impacted the list this year were seven people of colour are included in acting nominations.

“When you know how movies are made, the explosion of films with people of color is not a reaction to #OscarsSoWhite… The tide has changed, but we still have a ways to go, because they still aren’t inclined to greenlight a movie that’s starring a person of colour, without a long list of white box-office people,” Spencer told Deadline.

The actress said the term ‘diversity in Hollywood’ should not be only limited to African-Americans but it should represent people of “all shapes and sizes, varying ages, varying backgrounds and socioeconomic levels, varying degrees of education, impoverished and elite” “Moonlight is one of the few stories that cover what it’s like for the black, gay experience. Lion, that’s diverse, that’s out there now. There’s so many different perspectives and interesting stories out there. There are many, many meanings of diversity to me. I want to see more Latin stories told. More Asian stories.

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Spencer says the only way a difference can be made when people stopped spending their money on movies that don’t represent them.