Actress Octavia Spencer: 'Thank God' For Television's Multicultural Opportunities

Actress Octavia Spencer recently spoke on why she prefers television roles over film roles, "thanking God" for the opportunity to act on television because she believes it renders a more diverse cast.

Spencer, who has won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in "The Help," told The Daily Beast that she believes television offers the opportunity for diversity more than film.

Although Spencer has starred in hit movies that include "The Help" and "Smashed," The Daily Beast reports that the 44-year-old actress has been overlooked for more prominent roles that are usually reserved for Oscar award winners like herself. When asked why she thinks women of a certain age or color are not given prime movie roles, Spencer replied by saying: "Hollywood is strange in and of itself. People dress up and pretend to be other people, and you can either make millions of dollars, or no money. It's odd."

"But what I love about it is thank God for television, because you wouldn't have the diversity. Now, we're seeing it a little more in blockbuster movies. Thor had a multicultural cast. So did 'Winter Soldier.' 'The Amazing Spider-Man 2.' To me, that's what it should be. It baffles me that everything is so homogenized, because the world isn't, and yet we continue to support things that are so incredibly milquetoast."

Spencer will be starring in a new Fox series beginning this September called the "Red Band Society" that follows the job of a nurse in a hospital's pediatric ward.

She is also starring in the recently-released James Brown biopic "Get On Up," where she plays the role of Aunt Honey, a motherly figure to Brown, in the film.