Six weeks into President Trump’s return to power last year, I watched the Academy Awards in disbelief as his name wasn’t mentioned once and as the broadcast’s host, Conan O’Brien, made only veiled allusions to the state of things. He acted like a moderator in an authoritarian state where the smallest gesture of irreverence is seen as courageous. The political statements by the more famous winners and presenters — Zoe Saldaña, Daryl Hannah, Adrien Brody — were similarly muted or indirect. Especially after Hollywood’s open defiance during Mr. Trump’s first term, when Black Lives Matter and #MeToo gripped the entertainment industry, the change was profoundly disheartening. Why were people who had all the freedom to speak their minds already behaving as if that freedom had been taken away from them?
One year later, America has only gotten worse, its democracy more damaged, its treatment of the rest of the world more appalling and destructive. But thus far, 2026 awards ceremonies (the Golden Globes, the Actor Awards) have also been mostly politically muted, especially compared with other major televised events, like the Grammy Awards and the Super Bowl. Perhaps American film stars — or the studios from which they make a living — fear retaliation. Or their silence may have more to do with an ambient sense that celebrities who express political opinions are somehow frivolous, out-of-touch elites. That sentiment has been best personified by the comedian Ricky Gervais, who in 2020 opened the Golden Globe Awards by telling America’s actors: “If you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech. You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world.” Last month, he decided to repost that message on X, adding, “They’re still not listening.”
Mr. Gervais and those who agree with him are wrong. Hollywood’s great actors and directors are not merely well known; they are famous figures everywhere, even in dictatorships now closed to the world, such as Russia and North Korea. On Oscar night not only will the eyes of the American public be fixed on them; so will the ears of the entire planet, listening for the answer to the question: Your country is being turned into a dictatorship, people are being arrested and shot in the streets, your mad king is trampling your venerable Constitution underfoot — what do you have to say about it?
Actors are used to saying things other people have written for them. But right now it matters a lot whether they can find the right words themselves.
All authoritarian leaders crave the adoration of big cultural figures. That was true when Virgil praised the Emperor Augustus in his poems, and it was still true when Mr. Trump took over the Kennedy Center, renamed it for himself and then — after artists refused to perform there — decided to shut it down. The president rarely seems more personally aggrieved and vengeful than when a celebrity, whether it’s Rosie O’Donnell or Bad Bunny, snubs or insults him. When I did research for “The Director,” my novel about the German film industry under Nazi rule, I was surprised to see how focused Adolf Hitler and his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, were on winning over the luminaries of German film — as long as they were not Jews, of course — because they knew very well that the conduct of these world-famous people would send a signal across the globe.
The Nazis had some success. Emil Jannings, the first recipient of an Oscar and one of the most famous actors internationally at the time, allowed Goebbels to bestow on him the title of Staatsschauspieler and played leading roles in several major films of the nationalized German film industry. Werner Krauss lent his considerable talent to the infamous Nazi propaganda movie “Jud Süss,” claiming that no actor with any interest in his craft could pass up the opportunity to play so many different characters — at least four of them evil Jews — in one movie. G.W. Pabst, one of the most important directors in international cinema, made the films “The Comedians” and “Paracelsus” about heroes of German history. Erich Kästner, a children’s book author and a poet of cheeky political chansons, remained in Germany, fell silent and primarily wrote apolitical comedy and history movies under a pseudonym, with the tacit approval of Goebbels.
There were consequences for those who would not capitulate. Fritz Lang, Germany’s revered director of “Metropolis,” arguably the greatest silent movie of all time, rejected Goebbels’s offer to reshape the entire German film industry according to his will and went into exile. So did Marlene Dietrich, for whom the Nazis would have rolled out every red carpet, and the writers Thomas Mann and Erich Maria Remarque, both of whom could have stayed in Germany if they had only fallen silent and confined their opposition to private remarks.
No famous person in the United States has to choose between complicity and exile. The worst that can happen to renowned actors and filmmakers who speak out against their current government’s disregard for the law and common human decency is that they might be passed over for lead roles in franchise tent poles or streaming series. That can, of course, change. As we see in Hungary and Turkey, authoritarian regimes are never satisfied with what they have achieved; if they do not encounter resistance, they tighten the screws further. The amount of public dissent that may still be possible today could be impossible tomorrow.
For now, the world can still hear whether America’s cultural leaders will choose to stay silent. Mr. Trump is listening, too. It does make a difference if powerful famous people find the courage to speak out. It actually makes all the difference. So by a strange turn of events, a big part of the defense of American freedom now lies with people who have played Jedi knights, Avengers, guardians of galaxies, magicians, spies and athletes. For if they are too intimidated — or just don’t care enough — how can we demand bravery from anyone else?
Opportunism is contagious, but so is courage. The question is not whether actors should become politicians but whether citizens who happen to be very visible will at a decisive moment refuse to play the role that every authoritarian leader assigns them: decorative proof that all is well.
On a night when the world is watching, a few clear words will not save the Republic. But their absence may help end it.
Daniel Kehlmann is a German author and playwright whose latest novel, “The Director,” is about the German film industry under Nazi rule.
Source photographs by peych_p and Andrew Caballero-Reynolds, via Getty Images.
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