Charlotte Rampling says Oscar diversity comments were ‘misinterpreted’

British actress Charlotte Rampling, nominated for a best actress Oscar this year, said Friday that black United States director Spike Lee was “racist to whites” for his stance over this year’s all-white nominations lineup.

In a statement to CBS News, Rampling said: “I regret that my comments could have been misinterpreted”. Questioned on possible quotas, she replied: ” Why classify people?

“Why classify people? We now live in a place where everyone is more or less accepted”. “There are always problems: “He’s less handsome” or “He’s too black” or ‘He’s too white.’ There will always, always be someone who will say, ‘Oh, you’re too…’ What are we going to do? There is always someone who says ‘You are too…’ So are we going to say, ‘We will categorise all that to make lots of minorities everywhere?”‘

Legend mentioned how, even though diversity in acting nominations at the Oscars was critically important, there was actually one area that was far more important in terms of being inclusive and equal: the Academy’s governing ranks.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has faced years of criticism that its 7,000-plus members who vote on the Oscars are mostly older, male, white and out of touch with today’s moviegoers. Rampling told France’s Europe 1 radio Friday, Jan. 22, 2016 that sometimes “maybe black actors didn’t deserve to be in the final stretch”.

THE Academy have announced a host of changes they are implementing in the wake of the Oscars race row. But, how is it possible for the second consecutive year all 20 contenders under the acting category are white?

She said later that day her comments were misinterpreted.

He told BBC Radio 4: “Yeah, but there’s loads of black actors”. They say, ‘We’re black actors and we still don’t really exist’.

Fans and movie buffs tweeted their dismay under the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, which emerged past year after Academy nominations largely ignored critically acclaimed civil rights drama “Selma”.

“Be patient”, was Caine’s message to non-white actors, “Of course it will come”.

It follows a week of global debate about this year’s Oscars, with stars including George Clooney, Mark Ruffalo, Lupita Nyong’o, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith speaking out about the lack of black actors represented.