These are heavy times, says Angelina Jolie amid threats to freedom of speech in the US
American actor Angelina Jolie said she loves her country but doesn’t recognise it anymore amid the threats to free speech. “Anything anywhere that divides or limits personal expressions and freedoms from anyone, I think, is very dangerous,“ she said at Spain’s San Sebastián film festival on Sunday.
The Oscar-winning actor was asked by a journalist, “What do you fear as an artist and an American?”
“It is a very difficult question,” Jolie replied, in a video shared by The Guardian from the festival. “I love my country, but at this time, I don’t recognise my country. I’ve always lived internationally, my family is international, my friends, my life. My worldview is equal, united and international. Anything anywhere that divides or limits personal expressions and freedoms from anyone, I think, is very dangerous.”
She added, “These are such serious times that we have to be careful not to say things casually. These are very, very heavy times we are living in together.”
While Jolie didn’t name late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, her comments come on the heels of his show being suspended by ABC, which is owned by Disney. Disney said on Monday it would return comedian to late-night television today, six days after his show was threatened with a regulatory probe over comments he made about conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
He had said, “The MAGA gang [is] desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.”
Jolie has appeared in several Disney projects, including Maleficent and its sequel Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, and as the superhero Thena in The Eternals, part of Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
Former US President Barack Obama and others condemned Kimmel’s suspension, calling it capitulation to unconstitutional government pressure. Late-night show hosts Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, and David Letterman all rallied behind Kimmel.
Referring to Trump’s comment that “Kimmel is not a talented person”, Stewart joked that Trump had a “Talent-O-Meter” to measure when a performer’s “niceness to the president goes below a certain level”. Colbert said, “If ABC thinks this is going to satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive.” Meyers made light of fears that he might be next in line to be cancelled. Fallon said, “I do know Jimmy Kimmel, and he’s a decent, funny and loving guy, and I hope he comes back.”
Several Disney stars and prominent figures, including Olivia Rodrigo, Pedro Pascal and Mark Ruffalo, have voiced dissent and criticised the decision to suspend Kimmel, which the New York Times reported was made by Disney CEO Bob Iger and Disney’s head of television Dana Walden.
Ruffalo, who plays the Hulk in the MCU, wrote on Threads that Disney’s stock will “go down a lot further if they cancel” Kimmel’s show permanently. “Disney does not want to be the ones that broke America,” he wrote.
On Sunday, while speaking on a video for the anti-Trump “No Kings” protest planned for 18 October, Ruffalo said, “It is the US government that is now suppressing the freedom of speech. It is the US government, not your neighbours, not someone on social media. It is the government doing it now.
“And that’s where we all have to come together, because authoritarian regimes, fascist regimes have to degrade our freedoms more and more over time until we’re living the smallest, the most frightened, the most secretive lives. Think of yourselves living under the Taliban, because that’s where we’re headed,” the actor added.
Pascal, who starred in Disney’s Fantastic Four: First Steps this year and will appear in two major Disney films next year (The Mandalorian and Grogu, and Avengers: Doomsday), wrote on Instagram that he is “standing with” Kimmel, adding: “Defend #FreeSpeech Defend #DEMOCRACY.”
Tatiana Maslany, who plays She-Hulk in the MCU, called for her followers on Instagram to “cancel” their Disney+ subscriptions, while Damon Lindelof, a Hollywood showrunner and creator of the ABC series Lost, pledged he would not work with Disney+ again unless it put Kimmel back on the air.
“I was shocked, saddened and infuriated by yesterday’s suspension and look forward to it being lifted soon. If it isn’t, I can’t in good conscience work for the company that imposed it,” Lindelof wrote on Instagram.
Olivia Rodrigo, who rose to fame with Disney’s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, wrote that she was “so upset over this blatant censorship and abuse of power” and that she stood with Kimmel.
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