Denzel Washington says he lets his wife cast his Oscars vote
Daily Mail
They are supposed to be Hollywood's ultimate accolade, but Denzel Washington has admitted he delivers his Oscars vote without even bothering to watch the contenders.
The double Oscar winner's confession that he lets his ex-beauty queen wife, Pauletta, do the choosing is hardly helpful to an awards ceremony increasingly criticised as out of touch and elitist.
Washington, 57, made his confession while promoting his latest thriller.
'Actually, my wife watches all of the movies. You know they send you the DVDs and she watches them all,' he said.
'So she actually does the voting, I'll be honest with you,' he said.
'I watch some of them but she watches them all. She's like, 'Oh no, no, no - you don't want to put that one down.'
Washington's voting admission coincides with new research which reveals that the selectors of the Academy Awards are overwhelmingly white, middle class and older.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences never reveals its membership, which is made up of Oscar nominees and those they put forward within their industry.
But the Los Angeles Times confirmed that of the 5,100 of the 5,765 voting members, 94 per cent are white, 77 per cent are male and 54 per cent are over 60.
Although the figures are representative of the people who make the films, they hardly reflect those who watch them.
Individual members of the academy, which claims to encompass 'the most accomplished men and women working in cinema', include the singer Meat Loaf, Charlie's Angels star Jaclyn Smith and Erik Estrada, from the TV police series CHiPs.
Tom Sherak, the Academy's president, says the group is trying to diversify its membership.
Critics say the 'white and old' voter bias regularly skews which films are chosen, with a preference for little watched but critically-acclaimed contenders - such as recent winners The Hurt Locker and The King's Speech - over crowd-pleasers such as Harry Potter.
Washington, one of the biggest black stars in Hollywood's history, said the academy should reflect America's racial make-up.
Edited By GABRIELLA OSAMOR