Hollywood actor Ethan Hawke says he is afraid to speak his mind about politics today as he spoke out to the press this week about the Trump administration.
The Oscar nominee for Best Actor spoke to the press at the premiere of his new action film, The Weight, at the Sundance Film Festival, and the state of the U.S.A. was on his mind.
He brought up his worries in front of several reporters. To Variety, for instance, he said he fears speaking his mind in public.
“I never felt scared about what I was going to say until the last couple years,” he told the paper’s reporter. “Where I feel like ‘Oh, you have to be careful. Or, or what? I don’t know, but there’s a kind of fear in the air that I’ve never felt before — and it’s not America.”
“To get to be an artist in a free country, I’ve had enough of an education to know what a privilege that is. And, um, I don’t feel that way anymore. And that’s something that has to change,” he added.
Hawke did not exactly explain who he thought was hampering his right to free speech even as he was indulging his free speech right.
He told another reporter that he wants the U.S. to “return to sanity.”
“This is not America,” Hawke exclaimed. “This is not the shining city on the hill showing people about dignity, human integrity, compassion, and all the things that I was taught it meant to be an American.”
“I’m not interested in saying anything to provoke upset,” he continued, “I’m trying to figure out how we can return to sanity. So, I think everybody I know is really uncomfortable and upset and unsure of how to right the ship. And so, it’s nice to be a part of a community right now and get to talk to people, and get to feel and vibrate, you know, not to be alone. To be with you here talking about it and figure out a path forward. Not to incite blame and everything, just like citizens can’t be shot in the street, it’s absolutely unacceptable. It has to stop.”
Yet, even as Hawke is suddenly all interested in some sort of national dialog, he has in the past tried to shut down debate. He variously called Trump “selfish and greedy” for arresting Venezuelan strong man Nicolas Maduro, accused the Oscars for not being woke enough and nominating too many white people for awards, and blasted Hollywood for making too many movies with guns in them.
Still, he did speak out against the left’s cancel culture in 2021 and said that the censorship endemic in it has a chilling effect on artistic expression.
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