African-American actor and director Don Cheadle has said the Academy’s planned membership changes to improve diversity are a “step in the right direction”.
The Academy announced a new aim to double the number of female and minority members by 2020.
Three new seats will be added to to its board of governors in an effort to improve diversity, and lifetime voting rights will be limited.
According to US publication Deadline, Don said: “I think it is a step in the right direction, a needed step.”
Speaking at a screening of his new movie Miles Ahead at Sundance Film Festival, he said the problem went beyond the Academy and was a broader issue in the film industry.
“People really have to have access to tell the stories they want to tell. So what we really need is people in positions to greenlight those stories, not a hunk of metal,” he said.
Don, who was nominated in 2005 in the best actor category for his performance in Hotel Rwanda, had previously joked with Oscars host Chris Rock that he was attending the evening as a valet.
After the Oscar nominations were announced, with no ethnic minority actors or actresses on the list, he tweeted:
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