American actor Angelina Jolie said she loves her country but doesn\u2019t recognise it anymore amid the threats to free speech. \u201cAnything anywhere that divides or limits personal expressions and freedoms from anyone, I think, is very dangerous,\u201c she said at Spain\u2019s San Sebasti\u00e1n film festival on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The Oscar-winning actor was asked by a journalist, \u201cWhat do you fear as an artist and an American?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a very difficult question,\u201d Jolie replied, in a video shared by The Guardian<\/a> from the festival. \u201cI love my country, but at this time, I don\u2019t recognise my country. I\u2019ve 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.\u201d<\/p>\n She added, \u201cThese 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.\u201d<\/p>\n While Jolie didn\u2019t 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<\/a> 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\u2019s assassination.<\/p>\n He had said, \u201cThe MAGA gang [is] desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019s Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).<\/p>\n Former US President Barack Obama and others condemned<\/a> Kimmel\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Referring to Trump\u2019s comment that \u201cKimmel is not a talented person\u201d, Stewart joked that Trump had a \u201cTalent-O-Meter\u201d to measure when a performer\u2019s \u201cniceness to the president goes below a certain level\u201d. Colbert said, \u201cIf ABC thinks this is going to satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive.\u201d Meyers made light of fears that he might be next in line to be cancelled. Fallon said, \u201cI do know Jimmy Kimmel, and he\u2019s a decent, funny and loving guy, and I hope he comes back.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019s head of television Dana Walden.<\/p>\n Ruffalo, who plays the Hulk in the MCU, wrote on Threads that Disney\u2019s stock will \u201cgo down a lot further if they cancel\u201d Kimmel\u2019s show permanently. \u201cDisney does not want to be the ones that broke America,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n On Sunday, while speaking on a video for the anti-Trump \u201cNo Kings\u201d protest planned for 18 October, Ruffalo said, \u201cIt 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.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s where we all have to come together, because authoritarian regimes, fascist regimes have to degrade our freedoms more and more over time until we\u2019re living the smallest, the most frightened, the most secretive lives. Think of yourselves living under the Taliban, because that\u2019s where we\u2019re headed,\u201d the actor added.<\/p>\n Pascal, who starred in Disney\u2019s 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 \u201cstanding with\u201d Kimmel, adding: \u201cDefend #FreeSpeech<\/a> Defend #DEMOCRACY<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Tatiana Maslany, who plays She-Hulk in the MCU, called for her followers on Instagram to \u201ccancel\u201d 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.<\/p>\n \u201cI was shocked, saddened and infuriated by yesterday\u2019s suspension and look forward to it being lifted soon. If it isn\u2019t, I can\u2019t in good conscience work for the company that imposed it,\u201d Lindelof wrote on Instagram.<\/p>\n Olivia Rodrigo, who rose to fame with Disney\u2019s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, wrote that she was \u201cso upset over this blatant censorship and abuse of power\u201d and that she stood with Kimmel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"American actor Angelina Jolie said she loves her country but doesn\u2019t recognise it anymore amid the threats to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-39081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}