By Jill Lawless
LONDON (AP) --The president of Hollywood's movie academy says criticism of the lack of diversity among Oscar nominees has helped spark a vital global discussion about how to make the entertainment industry more inclusive.
Cheryl Boone Isaacs said "the whole discussion about diversity is a great discussion, because now it's at the top of everybody's mind, not just the academy's."
"It is now a global discussion, and that's really important," she said during a reception at the U.S. ambassador's London residence for new European members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Wednesday's event – whose guests included actors Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, directors Ridley Scott and Tom Hooper and former "Dynasty" star Joan Collins – was part of a push to boost the international profile and reach of the organization, best known for handing out the Oscars.
An all-white roster of acting nominees at the 2015 Academy Awards inspired the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite on social media and increased scrutiny of the lack of diversity in the ranks of the organization, whose 7,000 members are largely white and male.
In June the academy announced 322 new members, including actors Benedict Cumberbatch and David Oyelowo, musicians Common and John Legend and actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw.
Boone Isaacs, the first African-American woman to head the academy, called it a more diverse and inclusive list than ever before.
Academy chief executive Dawn Hudson said Wednesday that the invitation-only academy was urging all its branches to look more widely for potential new members.
U.S. ambassador Matthew Barzun praised trans-Atlantic cooperation at the reception, where guests were served canapes, champagne and bourbon-based Cary Grant cocktails amid the chandeliers and ornate Chinese wallpaper of the residence's Garden Room.
The cocktail choice was apt. Barzun recounted how British-born Hollywood star Grant persuaded his wife, Woolworths heiress Barbara Hutton, to sell her London home to the U.S. government for $1 after World War II. Winfield House, set amid 12 acres (5 hectares) of grounds in Regent's Park, has been the American ambassador's residence since the 1950s.
The academy's forays beyond Los Angeles and New York – with the London reception and a Paris gathering later this week – reflect an increasingly globalized movie industry.
Hudson said 40 percent of nominees for the most recent Oscars were from Europe – half of those from Britain.
British "Star Trek" and "X-Men" star Patrick Stewart said there remains a lack of roles for older women and black actors, and a "shocking underuse of women directors." But he said he was struck by how international the movie business had become.
"I wrapped a movie four days ago in New York and of the four leading actors, two were American, two were English," he told the AP. "But we also had a Brazilian actress, a Portuguese actress, a Canadian and a Spanish female director of photography, which was marvelous."
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More