Queen Latifah, Viola Davis, Orange Is the New Black cast talk diversity at SAG awards

Diversity in Hollywood remained a topic for questions put to many actors who came through the SAG awards press room after winning an award Saturday.

"What is exciting to me is that we're even having this conversation because I can tell you that five years ago,we wouldn't have been having this conversation," saidLea DeLaria from Orange Is the New Black, which won for best television comedy ensemble.

The Netflix series about a women's prison prides itself on a strong female cast withdiverse voices. DeLaria, who has been openly gay for decades, also plays an openly gay inmate on the show.

Concerns over thelack of representation on screen, particularly in film,has been dominating social media since the Academy Award nominations came out Jan. 14. The acting categories had all-white nominees for the second year in a row, sparking the popularhashtag#OscarsSoWhite.

The SAG awards showedmore diversity in its slate of nominees and eventual winners, which has only cast a larger spotlight on the Oscars.

Queen Latifah, who took the SAG award for her role in HBO's Bessie, was asked whether Hollywood is adapting fast enough to reflect its surroundings and audience.

"I think some of it was already happening but the public has to continue to demand that," she said backstage."We are in a capitalist society so hopefully supply and demand will kick back in. The people want it. Give it to the people."

Viola Davis, who said in her2015 Emmy acceptance speech for her role in How to Get Away with Murderthat "theonly thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity", wasreluctant to take the debatefurther after winning aSAG award Saturday for the same part.

"We have become a society of trending topics," she said. "Diversity is not a trending topic. It's just not. I see myself as an actor. No matter what is going on in the business, I will find a way to practise my art."

She argued that a more productive approach to initiate change in the businessis to "plop your money down" to see films such as Dope, Selma and Straight Outta Compton.

"That's more important than boycotting [the Oscars], is openness," she told reporters.