Former Oscar winner Dame Helen Mirren has mounted a defence of the Academy over its much publicised lack of diversity in its nominations, saying that it’s “unfair” to attack them when the real problem lies elsewhere in the industry.

The English screen icon, who stars in the Oscar-nominated movie Trumbo, was speaking to Jon Snow of Channel 4 News when she was asked whether the Academy and the industry were “behind the times” for not nominating a single black actor for the second year in a row.

Mirren said she felt it was “unfair to attack the Academy” and that “it just so happened it went that way” this year.

Helen MirrenHelen Mirren has spoken out about The Oscars diversity row

She admitted that Idris Elba, who won a SAG Award for his lauded role in Beasts of No Nation last weekend, “absolutely would have been nominated for an Oscar,” she explained that he was not simply because, “not enough people saw – or wanted to see – a film about child soldiers in Somalia or the Congo or somewhere like that.”

More: Helen Mirren will no longer show her “pleasure pillows” on screen

Beasts of No Nation was available primarily on Netflix, but had a very limited traditional theatrical release, which Mirren believes meant that not enough people had the opportunity to see it.

Furthermore, they didn’t necessarily want to either: “they just couldn’t face watching that movie.” However, she admitted that “the conversation is incredibly important. It forced the conversation.”

Since the nominations back on January 14th, which triggered the re-emergence of last year’s trending hashtag #OscarsSoWhite on social media, the Academy’s president Cheryl Boone Isaacs has announced a series of changes to its voting process, with a planned intake of new members to “represent greater diversity” and limits on the length of service for existing voters.

However, Mirren clarified what she feels the actual problem is. “I'm saying that the issue we need to be looking at is what happens before the film gets to the Oscars. What kind of films are made, and the way in which they're cast, and the scripts… so it's those things that are much more influential ultimately than who stands there with an Oscar.”

More: Helen Mirren says there’s still “profound sexism” in Hollywood