BERLIN (AP) — Selma director Ava DuVernay says she’s disappointed that star David Oyelowo’s performance as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., wasn’t recognized with an Oscar nod.
I was hurt by the fact that David wasn’t nominated because I know what it took to get that performance, DuVernay said at the film’s premiere in Berlin, adding, I don’t need anyone to tell me that it’s one of the best performances of 2014; no one needs to even say that to me because I already know.
Besides best picture, Selma is also nominated in the original song category for Glory, By Common and John Legend.
It’s a song that is going to be in the culture for quite a while, DuVernay said. Already choirs and students and people are singing this song and it’s becoming a protest that I think will last.
She said she was not expecting a best-director bid from the film academy. There has been no precedent for a black woman to be nominated for best director, so why was it going to change with me? she said.
Yet the director said she feels honored the film is a contender for the top Oscar.
We were nominated as best picture, which is nothing to sneeze at, she said. People act like we dragged out of there with nothing. I mean, best picture.