Mirren bashes Bafta over its diversity gaffe
HELEn MIRREN has slammed the lack of race and gender diversity among nominees at this Sunday’s Bafta Awards.
not a single non-white actor has been nominated for top acting honours — and no women were represented in the directing category.
The star, who has shelves of trophies celebrating her performances in The Queen and Prime Suspect (to name but two of her many credits) told me she ‘loved the fact that people have called out Bafta’ for its slate of nominations.
‘People should be impatient,’ she said, ‘ and they should keep demanding change. It will come, incrementally, but it will only come if people demand it. And keep demanding it.’
Mirren added: ‘Put your banner up for more roles for women — more roles for black women, especially — and more women directors. Keep demanding change. It’s good to be impatient.’
She and I were chatting after it emerged that British actress Cynthia Erivo had been ignored by Bafta voters for her portrait of American icon Harriet Tubman in the film Harriet. The Bafta leadership was embarrassed later when Erivo received two Academy Award nominations — for best actress and for the song (Stand Up) she co-wrote for the film.
Mirren and I wondered whether the Bafta omission had something to do with the apparent absence of an awards campaign for Harriet in the UK, whereas the one for her in America was omnipresent .
EVEN so, there’s a deplorable lack of outreach at Bafta, and they’ve been slow in bringing disparate communities together.
However, Mirren cautioned against gender and race communities being patronised. ‘I don’t think any director or actor would want to be nominated because of the colour of their skin, or because of their gender,’ she said. ‘It’s about the work, and there should be more of it.’
Mirren mentioned in passing — and not as criticism — that years ago at a Bafta ceremony, Sam Mendes made ‘a wonderful speech and paid tribute to all the directors who’d inspired him . . . and they were all men’.
Later, at the same event, Mirren said she hoped that in the future, there would be a woman’s name on that list of influential filmmakers. ‘If he was to make that speech again, I suspect he would put a woman’s name on it.’
We were speaking in her trailer during a break from shooting director Roger Michell and producer nicky Bentham’s picture The Duke, in which she appears alongside Jim Broadbent.
The Pathe Film production, based on the real story of the theft of Francisco Goya’s painting of the Duke of Wellington, has been filming in Bradford, Leeds and London.
‘The important thing is for other women and people of every race to have role models.
‘Without the role model you just don’t think it’s possible — but at least go for it. Have a go,’ she said, while acknowledging that the movie-making business is ‘monstrously competitive’.
She also observed that she has a couple of black English friends who left the UK for the U.S. ‘to find better opportunities, because there is often a shameful lack of work here’.
That’s something that Erivo felt compelled to do.
Her career has thrived since she moved to America.