Speaking to ETOnline, the Emmy winner and Oscar nominee questioned the availability of roles for minorities, saying, "You can change the Academy, but if there are no black films being produced, what is there to vote for?"
"I have all the answers, let me tell you right now," the Clouds of Sils Maria star quipped to E! News at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, thereby acknowledging the gravity of the issue when asked how Hollywood can better embrace diversity. "I don't know, I think an easy way to speak to it is just, you know, the industry is old and so the perspective is narrow and I think that on multiple levels everyone's pretty aware of that. How to fix that? I have no idea. The cool thing about independent movies, we are kind of...fairly untouched by the political nature of who gets the pats on the backs.
"If you think back 10 years ago, the Academy was doing a better job," the Oscar winner mentioned to Variety. "We should have been paying attention long before this. I think that African Americans have a real fair point that the industry isn't representing them well enough. I think that's absolutely true."
After his wife announced she would not be attending the 2016 Oscars, Will quickly followed suit. The Concussion star sounded off on Good Morning America: "The nominations reflect the Academy. The Academy reflects the industry...and then the industry reflects America," he said. "That's not the Hollywood that I want to leave behind, that's not the industry, that's not the America I want to leave behind."
"It has me thinking about unconscious prejudice and what merits prestige in our culture. The awards should not dictate the terms of art in our modern society, but rather be a diverse reflection of the best of what our art has to offer today," the Oscar winner wrote on Instagram.
The recent Golden Globe winner told Us Weekly he thinks the lack of Oscars diversity is "shameful and embarrassing," continuing, "There's two years in a row that there are no people of color nominated. That's insane."
The actress took to Facebook to write, "So disappointed that some of 2015's best films, filmmakers and performances were not recognized... Nothing can diminish the quality of their work, but these filmmakers deserve recognition. As an Academy member, I would love to see a more diverse voting membership."
In a speech given before British Parliament, the Beasts of No Nation actor asked U.K. broadcasters to consider, "Are black people often playing petty criminals?" Are women always playing the love interest or talking about men? Are gay people always stereotyped? Are disabled people hardly ever seen?"
"Everybody is getting their point of view in and we'll see who's on the right side of history and who's on the wrong side of history," Lee, who said he's going to a Knicks game on Oscars night, told E! News of the controversy surrounding the 2016 Academy Awards. "History will show that. I'm very confident where I'll be."
The Clueless alum called the Oscars controversy "ludicrous," adding, "We have to make up our minds. Either we want to have segregation or integration. And if we don't want segregation, then we need to get rid of channels like BET and the BET Awards and the Image Awards where you're only awarded if you're Black. If it were the other way around, we would be up in arms. It's a double standard."
For this Shameless star, boycotting the Oscars is a step in the right direction. "Talk about putting your money where your mouth is. It's not right. Someone's gotta say it. They said it. I applaud them," he told Us Weekly.
"I think, in the end, you can't just vote for an actor because he's black," the Oscar winner explained on BBC Radio 4. "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've got to give a good performance."
The Straight Outta Compton producer told Power 105.1 that maybe including "one random slave" in the N.W.A biopic would have caused "Academy members to recognize us as a real, black movie."
"I think you also have to look at the diversity on the Academy's board. It's not as diverse as reflected in today's society. There should be more movies that are made with diverse faces," the Golden Globe winner told ETOnline.
After the Oscar nominee told a French radio station the awards show was "racist to white people," Rampling told CBS News she "regrets that [her] comments could have been misinterpreted..."
Speaking to the Associated Press, The Office star believes, "Everyone has the right to be as upset as they are, because they should. I think that it's something that we should pay attention to. But my feelings are, beyond the Oscars, though I think it's a shame, I don't know that they should be taking all the responsibility."
Despite an Academy Award nomination for this year's Oscars, the Spotlight actor tweeted, "The Oscar Ban movement reflects a larger discussion about racism in the criminal justice system… I hope the Oscar Ban movement opens the way for my peers to open their hearts to the #BlackLivesMatter movement as well."
"I would like to walk away and say it doesn't matter, but it does, because that acknowledgement changes the trajectory of your life, your career, and the culture of the world we live in," the Golden Globe nominee voiced at the King Legacy Awards. "I am an Academy member and it doesn't reflect me, and it doesn't reflect this nation."
Leave it to this onetime Oscar nominee to tweet at the 2016 Oscars host Chris Rock, "Yo, Chris. Come check me out at #TheOscars this year. They got me parking cars on G level."
"It's the start of a conversation that feels like we shouldn't need anymore because particularly in this industry, we think of ourselves as being liberal [and] very progressive," the Harry Potter star told E! News of the backlash against this year's Oscar nominations. "We need to put our money where our mouth is."
At the Sundance Film Festival, the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia star told reporters, "It's unfortunate that the entire country is racist. This is one example of the fact that even though some people have given great performances in movies they weren't even thought about."
The Selma director told the New York Times she "hates" the word diversity because, "I feel it's a medicinal word that has no emotional resonance, and this is a really emotional issue. It's emotional for artists who are women and people of color to have less value placed on our worldview. There's a belonging problem in Hollywood."
"I respect the boycott," he said while being honored at the National Association of Television Program Executives. "Nobody? I mean that's really, really weird. You look at the films and you come away with nobody? That's... that's kind of crazy."
The presidential hopeful called the Oscars fiasco a "difficult situation" during an appearance on Fox & Friends, continuing, "I've watched over the years where African Americans have in fact received Academy Awards and have in fact been represented. And this is not one of those years..."