Daniel Wolfram
While promoting her new independent Italian film, the film star says she has to go outside of Hollywood to get booked for jobs. The reason is Palestine.
Oscar-winning actor Susan Sarandon says her career has stalled after she started to be outspoken about her support for Palestine.
Speaking at the Venice Film Festival, the 79-year-old movie star revealed that important executive producers in Hollywood are actively preventing her from getting booked in major films.
She alleges that acting in major studio productions is no longer a possibility for her and other outspoken artists.
Blacklisted in Hollywood
“I’ve still had movies taken away recently because there are agencies that are telling people not to hire me still,” Sarandon told reporters. “But that’s the power structure. I think [among] people, certainly internationally, I feel welcome.”
Sarandon is currently in Venice to promote her new film The Echo Chamber. The film is produced independently by an Italian film producer.
The veteran star was dropped by her talent agency UTA in 2023 after making comments at a pro-Palestine rally following the October 7 attacks in Israel and the subsequent Israeli military action and occupation in Gaza.
Shifting public perception
During that rally, Sarandon said: “There are a lot of people afraid of being Jewish at this time, and are getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country.”
Despite being blacklisted, she argues that broader public views are shifting.
“I think that the narrative has completely changed in terms of the historical relevance of Palestine and the ties of Zionists with America and our politics,” Sarandon noted.
She added: “That has been a major revelation for people, how much money the United States gives to Israel, nobody really understood that.”
According to reporting from The Guardian, recent US opinion polls show fading support for Israel while sympathy for Palestinians is on the rise.
Finding new allies outside of the US
Sarandon insisted that studios’ blackballing will not silence her and she will continue her political activism. “If it is a major studio, I think it’s not just with me but with other people who have been told that that is impossible,” she said.
She praised director Andrea Pallaoro for casting her in The Echo Chamber.
Susan Sarandon has been a star in Hollywood since the 1990s, when she starred in Thelma & Louise, The Client, and Dead Man Walking, for which she won an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.
