Mark Ruffalo, who won a Golden Globe earlier this year for his performance in the limited series I Know This Much Is True, has become the first Hollywood A-lister to distance himself from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association on the heels of Time’s Up, a coalition of PR firms and Netflix suggesting that reforms announced by the HFPA earlier this week do not adequately address concerns about the organization’s demographics and ethics.
“It’s discouraging to see the HFPA, which has gained prominence and profited handsomely from their involvement with filmmakers and actors, resist the change that is being asked of them from many of the groups that have been most disenfranchised by their culture of secrecy and exclusion,” Ruffalo said in a statement on Friday afternoon. “Now is the time to step up and right the wrongs of the past.”
He continued, “Our industry is embracing the opportunity for greater equality in this beautiful moment. It is not perfect and long overdo but it is clear what must happen and how. The Justice Movement is offering all of us, the HFPA, and every other entertainment entity, a good way forward. We should all follow suit. It is our audiences and our highest sense of decency that we are ultimately serving with these changes. They are both deserving.”
