Actory calls on filmmakers to ‘keep telling the stories, keep expressing yourself and keep fighting to be who you are’.
Chilean-American actor Pedro Pascal has called on members of the film industry to “fight back” and keep expressing themselves amid what he appeared to describe as a political climate of fear in the United States.
“F*** the people that try to make you scared. And fight back. This is the perfect way to do so in telling stories. Don’t let them win,” said 50-year-old Pascal, who was at the Cannes film festival for the premiere of “Eddington”.
“Fear is the way that they win, for one. And so keep telling the stories and keep expressing yourself and keep fighting to be who you are,” he said.
“Eddington” stars Pascal as a small-town mayor campaigning against a down-on-his-luck sheriff played by Joaquin Phoenix in a New Mexico town where tensions are simmering over COVID-19 mask policies and the Black Lives Matter protests.
Pascal, known for his role in dystopian video-game adaptation “The Last of Us”, added that it was “far too intimidating” for him to address a question about US President Donald Trump’s immigration policy.
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“It’s very scary for an actor participating in a movie to sort of speak to issues like this,” he said.
“I’m an immigrant. My parents are refugees from Chile. We fled a dictatorship, and I was privileged enough to grow up in the US after asylum in Denmark … I stand by those protections,” the 50-year-old told a news conference in Cannes.
Trump has launched a crackdown on irregular immigration and has also detained and moved to deport a number of legal permanent US residents, his policies triggering a rash of lawsuits and protests.
Trump has made himself one of the main talking points in Cannes this week after announcing on May 5 that he wanted 100 percent tariffs on movies “produced in foreign lands“.
Acting legend Robert de Niro, who accepted a Cannes lifetime achievement award on Tuesday, also urged an audience of A-list directors and actors to resist “America’s philistine president”.