Viola Davis dismissed Donald Trump's disparaging remarks about Meryl Streep after accepting her Best Supporting Actress award at last night's BAFTAs.
Streep previously used her Golden Globes Cecil B DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award acceptance speech to hit out at the US President for attempting to "kick out outsiders and foreigners", although she avoided naming him directly.
Trump fired back on Twitter (where else?), calling her an "overrated actress" and a "Hillary flunky".
However, speaking at last night's BAFTAs, Davis told reporters including Digital Spy: "Anyone who labels Meryl Streep an overrated actress obviously doesn't know anything about acting. That's just the way it is.
"This is someone who is the master at her skill and she has lasted for 40 years in a very difficult profession.
"On top of all those things, one of the things people have to know about this woman is that she is the most honourable, accessible human being you'd want to meet.
"I have never met anyone who has not been in her presence that she has not made feel like a star in their own lives. Very humble, very gracious human being."
Meanwhile, Davis - who won the BAFTA for her powerful and affecting turn in Denzel Washington's Fences - also predicted a decline in diversity at next year's Oscars.
Speaking about her daughter, who she had mentioned tenderly in her acceptance speech, she added: "I hope her opportunities – obviously – will be different than mine, only because she has more choices, but I don't rely on that.
"I always want her to be a game-changer, because I believe what still is a deficiency is, we have one year of having a plethora of African American movies like Moonlight, Hidden Figures and Fences, and then a year of nothing.
"I mean, people are already making Oscar predictions for next year and there are very few African American names in them.
"She has to understand that she has to be the change that she wants to see. She can't just sit back and assume that it already has changed – assume that people's minds have already been woken up.
"I mean, we see that in the political climate now: you have to be the instrument of change."
Naomi Gordon is news writer mainly covering entertainment news with a focus on celebrity interviews and television.
