Meryl Streep clarifies her ‘we are all Africans’ comment ahead of Oscars

Meryl Streep has spoken out to clarify her recent comments in the midst of the ‘#OscarsSoWhite’ controversy.

The award winner has insisted that her remarks were taken out of context and weren’t in relation to the boycott of the Academy Awards or the Berlin Film Festival’s all-white jury.

During a press conference at the Berlin Film Festival last week, she was quoted as saying:

“There is a core of humanity that travels right through every culture, and after all, we're all from Africa originally, you know? We're all Berliners, we're all Africans, really."

But while many people thought that is was in response to a question about the jury being made up predominately of white men, Streep has now said that it was actually about something else altogether.

In a piece on Huffington Post, he wrote: “Contrary to distorted reporting, no one at that press conference addressed a question to me about the racial makeup of the jury.

“I did not 'defend' the 'all-white jury,' nor would I, if I had been asked to do so. Inclusion - of races, genders, ethnicities and religions - is important to me, as I stated at the outset of the press conference."

Streep went on to explain that she’d actually been asked by a reporter is she’s “seen many Arab films.”

“I was not minimizing difference but emphasizing the invisible connection empathy enables, a thing so central to the fact of being human, and what art can do: convey another person's experience,” she continued.