Charlotte Rampling on her #OscarsSoWhite drama: ‘I’m anything but racist’

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“It is racist to whites. One can never really know, but perhaps the black actors did not deserve to make the final list,” added Rampling. Asked if the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences should introduce quotas, a proposal which no current advocate of increased diversity has mooted, she responded: “Why 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?”

Within hours, Rampling’s publicist made her issue an apology in which Rampling claimed that her comments had been “misinterpreted” and that she of course believes that “in an ideal world every performance will be given equal opportunities for consideration.” While her clarification left me cold (it was basically “sorry you read the words I actually spoke”), Rampling really didn’t suffer because of it. She didn’t have to answer any other questions about race and her belief that minorities were being racist to white people. Well now, months later, Rampling is talking about it again.

Charlotte Rampling has defended her controversial Oscars race row comments insisting her words were simply misunderstood.

“I probably think it was misinterpreted at the time. I thought, ‘Oh my god, what have I said’. It was in no way what people thought,” says the 70-year-old, who was nominated for best actress at the 2016 Academy Awards for her performance in British drama 45 Hours. “After I just didn’t listen to anything so I don’t know who said what about it. I can’t really say too much now. I could have easily had a dialogue but I wasn’t going to do that after what I said. I’m anything but racist.”

“I could have easily had a dialogue but I wasn’t going to do that after what I said. I’m anything but racist.” I have literally no idea what she’s trying to say there. Is she saying that of course she isn’t racist and she could have totally had a dialogue about what she said but she knew everyone would just say that she’s racist and she’s totally not racist, you guys. We know she’s not racist because she says so! And it’s like she wants bonus points because she COULD have had a dialogue about race but she didn’t. I would have been fascinated to hear that dialogue.

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