Do we like Octavia Spencer?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Years of visible allyship and good deeds, with only a snippy Trump-voter jibe and one cheeky joke she apologised for.
Octavia Spencer grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, the sixth of seven kids. Her mum worked as a maid and raised them alone after separating from her husband. Her dad died when she was 13, and she lost her mum at 17.
She worked through dyslexia at school, then graduated from Auburn in 1994 with an English degree. She got into film by hounding a production crew for an internship, and in 1996 she asked director Joel Schumacher for a part. That became a nurse role in A Time to Kill. Fifteen years later, The Help won her an Oscar.
Her messiest moment was small. In 2021 she told Britney Spears to make her fiancé sign a prenup. Spencer later said on Instagram it was a joke, not meant to hurt anyone. She also said she had contacted the couple privately, and he accepted her apology. That's how you handle a gaffe.
Her one bit of spice came in 2017, when she gave an interview about Hidden Figures. She said “It's the Trumpites who think people are bending the truth.” Tagging a whole group of voters is a bit broad, but it was aimed at people doubting a true story, not at anyone's rights.
She has also been vocal on pay. She said she hadn't been paid what she felt she deserved “Not yet”, and added that she always gets a raise. She also said she doesn't think any woman has really got what she deserves. Years earlier she sued the weight-loss firm Sensa. She was awarded a $940,000 default judgment in 2014, though she was unlikely to collect it.
The verdict: she has a long, steady run as an advocate and an Oscar winner. Nothing we found says she keeps harmful company or has a pattern of being unkind. We don't have reliable reporting on her everyday behaviour on set. That's why she lands at an eight and not a ten.