Academy president on lack of Oscar diversity: ‘Of course I am disappointed’

The brutal 1820s frontier revenge thriller “The Revenant” landed a leading 12 nominations for the 88th annual Academy Awards, while the acting categories were again filled entirely by white performers a year after the Oscars came under withering criticism over its lack of diversity.

The pioneer-era drama, about a man who is left for dead by his expedition companions after being mauled by a bear, will compete in a variety of categories, including Best Film, Best Director for Alejandro Inarritu, Best Actor for Leonardo DiCaprio, and Best Supporting Actor for Tom Hardy. “Champagne and Mezcal will run tonight!”

Mad Max has received ten nominations this year, including Best Special Effects, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Production Design, Best Director and even Best Picture.

The star of “The Martian”, Matt Damon, is up for Best Actor, his fourth nomination.

In the best animated film category, “Anomalisa”, a bit of stop-motion puppetry from Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson, for instance, overcame head-scratching by some to take its place alongside the more conventionally built “Inside Out”, “When Marnie Was There”, “Boy and the World” and “Shaun the Sheep Movie”. In the writing categories we have The Martian, The Big Short, Brooklyn, Carol and Room in the adapted screenplay category and Bridge of Spies, Ex Machina, Inside Out, Spotlight and Straight Outta Compton in the original screenplay category.

Blanchett was nominated for her role in lesbian romance “Carol”, and Lawrence for playing the Miracle Mop inventor in “Joy”.

The year’s overwhelmingly white list of nominees, including favourites Leonardo DiCaprio and Brie Larson, has caused outrage on Twitter.

The Academy Awards air Sunday, February 28 with Chris Rock as host.

“Of course I am disappointed, but this is not to take away from the greatness [of the films nominated]”, she told Deadline.

“People ask you ‘Oh, are you nervous to go to your premiere?’ I’m like, I don’t know what I could be nervous about”.

‘I think certainly the conditions that we had to shoot in were the main thing, the freezing cold temperatures, ‘ he continued.

As expected, DiCaprio clinched his fifth Oscar acting nod for Revenant, playing a fur trapper fighting to survive and avenge his son. Despite Universal Pictures mounting a robust awards campaign for its summer blockbuster “Straight Outta Compton”, neither that film’s director, F. Gary Gray, nor any of its black lead actors was nominated, though the film’s two white screenwriters were.