[Senator Clay Davis]

Charlotte Rampling, one of the biggest surprises in this year’s Oscar’s “Best Actress” category, has weighed in on the controversy about the lack of diversity in this year’s nominations by calling it reverse racism. “It is racist to whites,” the 69-year old British actress, nominated for Andrew Haigh’s drama 45 Years, said in an interview with French Radio network Europe 1 Friday morning. “One can never really know, but perhaps the black actors did not deserve to make the final list,” she added. When the interviewer asked whether the Academy should introduce some form of quota, she responded that we shouldn’t classify people: “These days everyone is more or less accepted … People will always say: ‘Him, he’s less handsome’; ‘Him, he’s too black’; ‘He is too white’ … someone will always be saying ‘You are too’ [this or that] … But do we have to take from this that there should be lots of minorities everywhere?”

http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womeninth...everse-racism/

“Yeah, but there’s loads of black actors,” Caine responded. “You can’t vote for an actor because he’s black. You can’t just say, ‘I’m going to vote for him. He’s not very good, but he’s black. I’ll vote for him.’ You have to give a good performance.”

Caine added he was sure there were “very good” performances last year among actors of color, specifically citing Beasts of No Nation star Idris Elba, who was one of the most surprising Oscar snubs. “The one I – I don’t know whether Idris got [nominated],” Caine said. “I saw Idris, and I thought he was wonderful. I thought he would get [nominated]. Did he not get nominated?”

Told by Robinson that Elba was not nominated, Caine replied, “Well, look at me. I won the [European Film Award] for best actor, and I got nominated for nothing else.” The 82-year-old actor had been in contention for his role in Youth.

“The great thing about it is you don’t have to go,” Caine said about failing to receive a nomination. He then joked that he wasn’t going to “sit there clapping for Leonardo DiCaprio.”

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/01/22...-michael-caine