Our Diverse 100: Meet Keke Palmer, the actress looking to social media to change Hollywood

2002’s “Barbershop 2: Back in Business” was Palmer’s first movie role, but she became notable for 2006’s “Akeelah and the Bee.” Ten years later, she’s mastered the world of television, film, stage and music. This Q&A is part of a special series examining diversity in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Read more profiles here.

Was there a moment when you realized that your race or gender was impacting your career, positively or negatively?

I’ve learned to try not to take things so personally and to be conscious of what I want to represent, knowing that at the end of the day when someone looks at me, they are going to see that I’m black. So, whatever that means to me, I want to make sure I am conscious of what I’m representing.

What was your reaction to #OscarsSoWhite — the lack of nominees of color and the resulting conversation?

I felt like that was messed up, but, even more so, I felt like we needed more projects. As much as accolades are great, my mind was going to, “Well, if we don’t have the movies out there, how can we get nominated for them?” There needs to be more opportunity for different types of people so we see those different types of people getting nominated and winning.

Actors of color often talk about the limited number of roles written for people of color. Have you experienced that as well?

I’ve experienced it for a long time. As a kid, I found that there were a lot of opportunities where I did read for a young black girl role. But as I got older, no. To me, I didn’t know if I should’ve seen that as a good thing or bad thing because, in all honesty, I wondered as a kid why I wasn’t going out for roles that weren't just for black girls. But at the same time, with “True Jackson VP,” a show I did on Nickelodeon, a lot of people assume that it was written for me. Not only was it not written for me, it wasn’t originally seen to be a black girl.

But we need diversity on the screen and behind the scenes as well. Because if you're just playing in the movie, and not producing or writing the movie, it’s hard to say something.

Television is said to be more diverse than film. Having worked in both worlds consistently, do you agree?

At the end of the day, what you see is what you see. I’m on Netflix, so, for my generation, we choose what we watch, when we watch it. I think it just depends where you’re looking because there is a lot of diversity online. That’s why I watch online. Maybe it is because I want to see more diversity, so I do the choosing.

I did a movie called “Brotherly Love.” It did horrible in the theaters ... but when you put it on Netflix, it was the No. 1 movie. It’s messed up what happened at the Oscars, but lets create more content. We have the ability, especially as young people, to take the industry into our own hands. We have AwesomenessTV, YouTube Red, Netflix, Hulu. We can really create whatever it is we’re not seeing or getting enough of on any network or from any studio.

READ MORE: Here are 100 people in Hollywood who could help fix the Academy’s diversity problem