An Oscar-winning actor whose credits include such blockbusters as “Jaws” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” Richard Dreyfuss, is criticizing new rules on diversity in films from the academy that hands out the famous statuettes.

In an interview with Margeret Hoover on PBS’s “Firing Line,” the winner of the best actor Academy Award for his role in “The Goodbye Girl” in 1978, said the new rules requiring racial quotas for actors and crew on films by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences “make me want to vomit.”

“It’s an art,” Mr. Dreyfuss said. “And no one should be telling me as an artist that I have to give in to the latest, most current idea of what morality is. And what are we risking? Are we really risking hurting people’s feelings? You can’t legislate that. And you have to let life be life. And I’m sorry. I don’t think that there is a minority or a majority in the country that has to be catered to like that.”    

In 2020, following the murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minnesota and the widespread racial unrest that followed, the academy said it would begin requiring films in contention for its coveted Oscar for best picture to meet one of several “representation and inclusion standards.” The new rules go into effect in 2024.

“The aperture must widen to reflect our diverse global population in both the creation of motion pictures and in the audiences who connect with them,” the leaders of the academy, President David Rubin and chief executive Dawn Hudson, said at the time. “The Academy is committed to playing a vital role in helping make this a reality. We believe these inclusion standards will be a catalyst for long-lasting, essential change in our industry.”

To meet the guidelines, films can either have a lead actor or a significant number of supporting actors that come from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group, or at least 30 percent of an ensemble cast from those groups. The main storyline or theme can also revolve around a member of one of those underrepresented groups. Films whose creative teams or department heads are from underrepresented groups can also qualify, as can those who offer paid apprenticeships or internships or whose marketing, publicity, and distribution teams have significant minority representation.

Among the groups cited as underrepresented are people of Asian, Hispanic, Black, Native American, Middle Eastern or North African, or Native Hawaiian or Pacific Island heritage. Also mentioned were women, LGBTQ crew members, and those suffering from cognitive or physical disabilities.

In his critique of the new rules, Mr. Dreyfuss cited actor Laurence Olivier’s 1965 role in “Othello,” which he did in blackface, as an example of something that would never be allowed in today’s climate in Hollywood.

“He played a Black man brilliantly. Am I being told that I will never have a chance to play a Black man? Is someone else being told that if they’re not Jewish, they shouldn’t play ‘The Merchant of Venice’? Are we crazy?” Mr. Dreyfuss stated. “This is so patronizing. It’s so thoughtless and treating people like children.”

The actor also commented on the debate over curriculum and books currently roiling the culture wars, saying, “I think we’re cowards. Republicans send their children to schools hoping and praying that their children will come back Republicans and Democrats send their children to school urgently praying that their children come back Democrats. The idea that a parent would walk into a public school and say, ‘I don’t want my children exposed to opposing views.’ That’s wrong.”