21 Celebrities Who Have Spoken Out About #OscarsSoWhite

"I am disappointed by the lack of inclusion in this year's Academy Awards nominations," the actress wrote on her Instagram. "It has me thinking about conscious 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. I stand with my peers who are calling for change in expanding the stories that are told and recognition of the people who tell them."

"I'd like to acknowledge the wonderful work of this year's nominees," the Academy president wrote in an official statement on Twitter. "While we celebrate their extraordinary achievements, I am both heartbroken and frustrated about the lack of inclusion. This is a difficult but important conversation, and it's time for big changes. The Academy is taking dramatic steps to alter the makeup of our membership. In the coming days and weeks we will conduct a review of our membership recruitment in order to bring about much-needed diversity in our 2016 class and beyond.

"As many of you know, we have implemented changes to diversify our membership in the last four years. But the change is not coming as fast as we would like. We need to do more, and better and more quickly. This isn't unprecedented for the Academy. In the '60s and '70s, it was about recruiting younger members to stay vital and relevant. In 2016, the mandate is inclusion in all of its facets: gender, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation. We recognize the very real concerns of our community, and I so appreciate all of you who have reached out to me in our effort to move forward together."

"#OscarsSoWhite... Again," the director wrote on Instagram. "I Would Like To Thank President Cheryl Boone Isaacs And The Board Of Governors Of The Academy Of Motion Pictures Arts And Sciences For Awarding Me an Honorary Oscar This Past November. I Am Most Appreciative. However My Wife, Mrs. Tonya Lewis Lee And I Will Not Be Attending The Oscar Ceremony This Coming February. We Cannot Support It And Mean No Disrespect To My Friends, Host Chris Rock and Producer Reggie Hudlin, President Isaacs And The Academy. But, How Is It Possible For The 2nd Consecutive Year All 20 Contenders Under The Actor Category Are White? And Let's Not Even Get Into The Other Branches. 40 White Actors In 2 Years And No Flava At All. We Can't Act?! WTF!!

"For Too Many Years When The Oscars Nominations Are Revealed, My Office Phone Rings Off The Hook With The Media Asking Me My Opinion About The Lack Of African-Americans And This Year Was No Different. For Once, (Maybe) I Would Like The Media To Ask All The White Nominees And Studio Heads How They Feel About Another All White Ballot. As I See It, The Academy Awards Is Not Where The 'Real' Battle Is. It's In The Executive Office Of The Hollywood Studios And TV And Cable Networks."

"I don't think it's a problem of who you're picking as much as it is: how many options are available to minorities in film, particularly in quality films?" he said in an interview with Variety. "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. There should be 20 or 30 or 40 films of the quality that people would consider for the Oscars. By the way, we're talking about African Americans. For Hispanics, it's even worse. We need to get better at this. We used to be better at it."

"We need to count up what everybody has, see the lay of the land, see who has which careers in TV, who makes TV, who's allowed on TV," he said in a message to Parliment. "You have to ask the question, 'Are black people always playing petty criminals? Are women always the love interest or always talking about men? Are gay people always stereotyped? Are disabled people ever seen at all?' The reason I went to America is because the USA has the most famous diversity policy of all, and it's called the American dream. The problem is the gap between the dream and the reality . . . to champion diversity is to champion the American dream. That's the guarantee I want here in Britain. Where's the British dream?"

"A year ago, I did a film called Selma, and after the Academy Awards, [Academy President] Cheryl [Boone Isaacs] invited me to her office to talk about what went wrong then," the actor said at the King Legacy Awards. "We had a deep and meaningful [discussion]. For 20 opportunities to celebrate actors of color, actresses of color, to be missed last year is one thing; for that to happen again this year is unforgivable."

"They called me to go present with Pharrell and Common," Quincy said about the upcoming ceremony. "When I'm back [in LA], I'm going to ask [them] to let me speak for five minutes on the lack of diversity. If not, I'm not going to [present]. There are two ways to do it. You can boycott or you can fix it. It's frightening to see 90 percent white and 80 percent white male."

"You have to remember, the tail doesn't wag the dog, the dog wags the tail," Melissa told Us Weekly. "Everyone is angry at the tail. The problem is the dog. Until that problem is solved, and there's a larger pool of roles and performances, you're going to find yourself in this situation. There's a systemic problem with opportunities for different races in Hollywood and I'm glad there's attention being put on it."

"So disappointed that some of 2015's best films, filmmakers and performances were not recognized," Reese wrote on Facebook. "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."

"I understand the boycott," Steve told The Hollywood Reporter. "I understand what they're saying. What I don't understand is asking Chris Rock not to host. I think Chris Rock should host. Chris Rock doesn't determine who the [nominees] are. The Academy does. And nobody knows who the Academy is." He reiterated his point on Access Hollywood saying, "You take Chris off, ain't no blacks. Nowhere. You can't go forward and backwards at the same time."

"The problem is not with the Oscars," Viola told ET. "The problem is with the Hollywood movie-making system. How many black films are being produced every year? How are they being distributed? The films that are being made, are the big-time producers thinking outside of the box in terms of how to cast the role? You can change the Academy, but if there are no black films being produced, what is there to vote for?"

"We don't do movies for the industry," he said during an appearance on The Graham Norton Show in the UK. "We do movies for the fans, for the people."

Matt Damon spoke out about the controversy to Us Weekly during the Sundance Film Festival, saying, "You know, it's shameful and embarrassing," adding, "There's two years in a row that there are no people of color nominated. That's insane." He also praised Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs for the Board of Governors' plan to double their minority membership: "It's a strong first step but that is all that it is, it's a first step. This is going to be a very long road . . . I was very happy that they did that."

He also gave a quote to AP, saying, "We're talking about huge systemic injustices around race and gender that are a lot bigger than the Oscars. They're massive issues in our industry and in our country."

The director, who won an Oscar in 2014 for 12 Years a Slave, is the only black person to take home the award for best picture. Steve told The Guardian, "One could talk about percentages of certain people who are Academy members and the demographics and so forth, but the real issue is movies being made. Decisions being made by heads of studios, TV companies and cable companies about what is and is not being made. That is the start. That is the root of the problem." He continued: "I'm hoping in 12 months or so we can look back and say this was a watershed moment, and thank God we put that right."

The actor's view on #OscarsSoWhite is pretty cut and dry; he told AP, "We are a bunch of racists. It's unfortunate that the entire country is a racist country." He went on: "We are living in a country that discriminates and has certain racial tendencies which — racist tendencies — so sometimes it's manifested in things like this and it's illuminated."

In the same interview with AP, Don echoed Danny DeVito's sentiments, saying that the Academy's plan to increase its membership diversity is "dealing with the symptom and not starting at the root cause of how we even get to results like this."

Actor Sam Neill also told AP that he is "baffled" by the lack of Oscar nominations for people of color, saying, "I would have thought that Idris Elba and Sam [Samuel L.] Jackson would have been a shoo-in for nominations."

John, who took the stage to help introduce the Oscar nominations earlier this year, weighed in on the controversy during the Sundance Film Festival. "Pushing diversity forward is not only a major step that we all need to take, but it's a responsibility that we should be doing all around," he told The Hollywood Reporter, adding, "So as disappointing as I think it is to hear about the Oscars and the lack of diversity in the announcements, I think it's a nice call to arms for the rest of our business to be talking about what movies we're making, who we're allowing to direct that, who we're allowing to be in the stories we're trying to tell."

Lena recently spoke out about the issue at Sundance saying, "If the studio system is ignoring these voices then we have a very serious problem, and they are, and the fact is this dialogue and the promises that the Academy has made is the beginning of shifting that, but what really needs to happens is that people need to take notice and give resources to these voices. The idea that there aren't enough diverse filmmakers or there aren't enough woman filmmakers to give jobs to, it's simply a fallacy and I know that because I'm here and I'm seeing the movies."

The actress also spoke out about the issue at Sundance saying, "I think Shonda Rhimes said it best. She said, 'I'm not a trailblazer for casting my shows like reality.' Diversity isn't brave. It's not a fad. It's reality. . . . If you look around the room it's pretty diverse, and everyone should have a place at the table. It's representation. It's seeing your face reflected. I think if you see who runs Hollywood it's a very homogeneous group and they like to see themselves reflected."