Ten Hollywood Celebrities We Stand With

California is a massive state and while it has its associations with the free-spirited hippies, it also houses its fair share of fundamentalist Christian conservatives and all varieties of cults. The earliest rules of Hollywood were enshrined in the Hays Code, a regulation imposed by the filmmaking industry itself on films that defiled certain moral norms – mostly of a sexual nature of course – grotesque violence has always been part and parcel with American Christianity. Homosexuality and free-thinking women were big no-nos here. These characters of course are allowed, but by the time the credits role, they must pay for their sins of the flesh! Racism was of course permitted and even incentivised. Violation of these guidelines did not land you in prison, but perhaps you would prefer that to the infamous Hollywood blacklist. As moral sentiment lightened up, a new threat on the horizon became the unspoken rule in Hollywood: communism. The Red Scare saw to some of the most famous blacklisting of actors as well as those behind the camera. As this blacklisting went rather public, including Congressional hearings in Washington, D.C. the institution had to tone down its internal politics as the government was now getting involved. This coincided with a major blow to the big studios of the time and the era known as New Hollywood where independent filmmakers came in and gave us the grit of 1970s and 1980s film, before it all sold out to the gods of capitalism with its newest invention, the blockbuster.

It would be naïve to think that blacklisting went away, it just went under the table. Those who survived the New Hollywood revolution, and those revolutionary generals who became the new kings, formed a new elite (an amalgamation of old money and new) who were untouchable. Ideology was not so much the issue, though certain ideas could not be touched, namely Israel. In fact, it was almost cliché to attack the US government, but Israel was only to be glorified. Zionists made fast bedfellows with paedophiles (by no means a new phenomenon in Hollywood, paedophilia and other forms of sexual harassment date back to the incorporation of Hollywood into Greater Los Angeles at the turn of the century). The only people who dared to touch these untouchables either did it at the end of their careers (such as Stanley Kubrick with his final film in 1999, Eyes Wide Shut) or at their own peril. Those who went against these simple rules were of course blacklisted, suddenly they would get no new role offers, the scripts would not get greenlit, money would be withdrawn from their projects, and so goes the game. But it did not stop there. They would also be demonised. Either a past drug problem would be drawn on, or a previous scandal resurfaces (neither of which the Hollywood denizens tend to have shortage of in their histories). They would be labelled as mentally unstable, and made pariahs. And then the powers that be would have them slowly silenced.

But now the world is undergoing radical change. From Black Lives Matter to MeToo, cracks appeared in the veneer. Then genocide in Gaza compounded with an illegal war in Iran. Zionism is the naked emperor, and the paedophile vampires have been brought out into the light. And they are not going down without a fight. US President Donald Trump, in his attempt to make America Great Again, has enlisted the help of Jon Voight, Sylvester Stalone, and Mel Gibson as Special Ambassadors to Hollywood to make sure there are no regime changes in old Hollywood. While the not always keen mind of the celebrity is often the last to notice, a few are finally speaking out with complete disregard for the unspoken rules. And several toxic empires stand to be toppled in the aftermath. So, for the brave who stand against injustice, we stand with them. This is a list of ten of the more noticeable individuals standing against the evils of Zionism and Hollywood’s other crimes.

1. Meryl Streep

A Hollywood institution, Meryl Streep is well-regarded as one of the most versatile actors of her era. She is the most Academy Award nominated actor of all time with twenty-one nominations and most Golden Globe Nominated actor of all time with thirty-four nominations. She has three Oscars and is one of only thirteen performers to win both the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress Academy Award. Her first role was opposite Jane Fonda in 1977’s Julia. From early on she demonstrated a preternatural ability to disappear into the role, famously taking on a variety of accents to hide herself entirely. And as she aged her quality never faltered. Beyond stage and screen Meryl Streep has been a major advocate for women’s empowerment. She has been a huge supporter of the National Women’s History Museum in Washington, D.C. and donated to public theatre and endowed scholarships for women. A self-proclaimed member of the American Left, she has supported causes of the US’s Democratic Party, gender equality, and labour rights. She has been a loud vocal critic of President Donald Trump (during both terms). She remained surprisingly silent on the Palestinian issue but drew controversy in 2017 when making a pro-immigrant speech at the Golden Globe Awards when she stated that colleague Natalie Portman was born in Jerusalem, not Israel, when she noted the nation of birth, not city, for the other immigrant actresses in the audience. Although she claims to follow no creed or doctrine (religiously or politically), as a long time defender of equality and justice we are pleased to see that she has openly come out as a Palestine champion.

2. Susan Sarandon

For five decades Susan Sarandon has been a household name in America. She is a five-time Academy Award nominee, finally winning in 1995 for her portrayal of Sister Helen Prejean in Dead Man Walking where a nun seeks a final appeal for a murder convict sentenced to death. Beyond the screen Sarandon has been vocal on a variety of humanitarian and progressive causes. She has stood against capital punishment, child hunger, and for women’s equality. She has also been a strong oppositional voice to the US War in Iraq and stood against racism and homophobia in the arts industries. Even after being labelled as one of the ‘lefty loonies’, her political stance did not hinder her career. That was until she began becoming vocal about Palestine. Sarandon served as executive producer of the 2017 documentary Soufra, which covered the development of a food truck in the Palestinian refugee camp, Bourj el Barajneh, in Beirut, Lebanon. In 2021, Sarandon took to Twitter calling Netanyahu’s Israeli government ‘apartheid’. She also applauded Palestinian American model Bella Hadid’s efforts for her people and pushed for justice and peace in Palestine. She has consistently decried the labelling of Palestinian human rights groups as ‘terrorist organisations’. Her efforts escalated in November 2023, with the invasion of Gaza, after which she famously attended the Union Square pro-Palestine protest in New York City. Four days later, her agency dropped her as a client. Effectively blacklisted, she has not been able to get any jobs in film or television since, but remains committed to speaking for justice in Gaza, against ICE’s unfettered powers in regard to immigrants, and has even served on the steering committee for the Global Sumud Flotilla, aimed at delivering aid to the people of Gaza.

3. Melissa Barrera

Born in Mexico, Melissa Barrera became famous in 2018, when she starred in the Starz series Vida. This landed her a role in the musical film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights, her first big screen role. Then, she joined the classic cast in 2022’s Scream V, a legacy sequel to the franchise, which was a box office success. She was quickly brought back for another sequel, Scream VI, a year later in 2023. This sequel became the highest opening weekend of the whole franchise. In November 2023, Barrera took to social media highlighting Gaza’s being transformed into a concentration camp and the genocide and ethnic cleansing being undertaken by the Israeli government. Spyglass, the production company who owns the rights to the Scream franchise, immediately sacked her from Scream VII and accused her of antisemitism. Co-star Jenna Ortega also left the project along with the director in protest leading to a disaster of a final product. Barrera saw this as a blessing in disguise so that she could move away from her ‘Scream Queen’ typecasting to work on more personal projects. She participated in a Palestinian protest at 2024’s Sundance Film Festival. In 2025, she signed a pledge organised by Film Workers for Palestine to boycott Israeli film and television as being complacent in the genocide in Gaza.

4. John Cusack

Born to filmmaker parents in Evanston, Illinois in the US, John Cusack and his siblings have been among Hollywood royalty over the last four decades. Cusack first rose to prominence through a series of 1980s teen films including such titles as Sixteen Candles, Better off Dead, and Say Anything…. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s he took on more serious roles along with the occasional comedy. In the noughties, Cusack also became a lot more politically outspoken, especially after the election of George W Bush as US president and the 11 September attacks. He has been a vocal anti-war advocate criticising both Bush as well as Obama for his authorisation of drone strikes in Pakistan. He has also come out in support of Black Lives Matter and in opposition to the militarisation of police in the US. Suffice it to say, he has been a major critic of both of Donald Trump’s presidencies and has not been quiet about it! In 2014, Cusack became a major critic of Israeli actions against Palestine, signing an open letter in support of the American singer Lorde cancelling a performance in Israel in response to the 2014 Gaza War, and equated the Israeli government to Nazis. In 2023, he redoubled his anti-Israeli stance and continued the call for Free Palestine. In 2024, he was nominated for Anti-Semite of the Year Award (alongside Greta Thunberg and Cori Bush) by the American Zionist group StopAntisemitism. Cusack is top of the Hollywood blacklist, but is unbothered as he has found roles through independent filmmakers, streaming endeavours, and is finding plenty of offers in Chinese cinema (Check out Detective Chinatown 1900!) all unbound by the Zionist’s concerns.

5. Mark Ruffalo

Mark Ruffalo was born to a Bahá’í Italian father and a Catholic French-Canadian Mother in Wisconsin, US. He started his career on the stage, and became familiar to audiences as a common heartthrob character in various romantic comedies throughout the noughties. In 2012, he solidified his place as a superstar celebrity when he replaced Edward Norton as Bruce Banner or the Hulk in the Marvel cinematic universe, first appearing in The Avengers. His more serious roles are often laced with massages of his political views. He has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor four times, and he accumulated a couple of Emmys. Throughout his career he has been a spoken advocate for a variety of left causes, supported such figures as Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbin, and has been a strong activist against rising fascism and xenophobia. In 2015, Ruffalo supported the ‘Education is Not a Crime’ Campaign that drew attention to the Iranian government’s denial of university education to young Bahá’ís. Rigorously anti-war, Ruffalo has been critical of the US War in Iraq calling for war crime charges against former US President George W Bush. He was an early Hollywood voice arguing that Israeli policy was apartheid and contributing to the genocide of the Palestinian people, noting how Gaza had been turned into a modern day ‘concentration camp’. He is also a signatory of various open letters including the 2025 Film Workers for Palestine pledge and the SAG-AFTRA and Sister Guild Member letter denouncing the ‘McCarthyist repression of members who acknowledge Palestinian suffering’. His vocal support for Palestinians earned him the label of ‘antisemite’ as early as 2020. He has stated that he is not worried about being blacklisted.

6. Javier Bardem

Although he has become famous for his villainous portrayals of Anton Chigurh in 2007’s No Country for Old Men or the Bond villain Silva in 2012’s Skyfall, Javier Bardem is a deeply empathetic soul. Born in the Canary Islands, Spain, Bardem is the son of the famous Spanish actress Pilar Bardem. In 1997, he was noticed by John Malkovich but turned down a role for lack of confidence with his English. Throughout the noughties, Bardem became a familiar face in a variety of Hollywood roles, even earning a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor, the first Spaniard to gain that achievement. Yet, despite his meteoric rise, he remained humble and used his platform to speak out to the various causes close to his heart. Bardem and his wife, Penelope Cruz, have spoken for awareness of the mineral conflicts in eastern Congo, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and climate change. Bardem and Cruz have also been long time opponents of the US invasion of Iraq and the plight of the Palestinians. One of their earliest actions concerning Palestine was signing a letter denouncing Israel’s 2014 Gaza War, notable for being one of the first major letters to callout Israel’s actions as genocide. Since 2024, Bardem has spoken out against what was going on in Gaza while sporting a keffiyeh. He has made his opinions public through a variety of interviews, famously with E! Entertainment News and The View. At the 2026 Academy Awards, Bardem presented the award for Best International Feature Film alongside Bollywood actress and producer Priyanka Chopra. Bardem was sporting two pins, one that read ‘No a la guerre’ (No to War) a pin he wore two decades earlier to oppose the US War in Iraq, and a second with the Handala, a symbol of Palestinian resistance. Before the assembled audience, he said ‘No to War and Free Palestine’ which threw off his co-presenter, Chopra, who had already experienced backlash for her support of the Indian military and would gain infamy for remaining silent on the Palestinian issue.

7. Andrew Garfield

Born in Los Angeles California to an American father and British mother, the family moved to Surrey in the UK when he was three years old. Garfield has been acting since the age of nine and appeared in a number of television shows, including a couple episodes of Doctor Who. His first major role was in the 2007 American anti-war film Lions for Lambs. He gained prominence in 2010 starring in both Never Let Me Go and The Social Network. The next decade would see Garfield rise into stardom by taking on the role of Peter Parker in the short-lived Amazing Spider-Man franchise. In the last decade he has starred in numerous critically acclaimed films and now has a name with major drawing power for a variety of upcoming films. He identifies as an ‘agnostic pantheist’ and also as a member of the Jewish community, his heritage coming from his father’s side, a family of Polish Jews who immigrated to the UK. He has been a major champion for a variety of charities including those dedicated to cancer research (his own mother died from pancreatic cancer in 2021) and for supporting orphan children. He has also stood out for ending hostilities in the Middle East in general and specifically for the genocide in Gaza. In 2023, Garfield was one of the signatories on the Artists4Ceasefire open letter to former US President Joe Biden. Since then, he has been a major supporter of Palestine.

8. Tilda Swinton

Although born in London, Tilda Swinton comes from an ancient line of Scottish politicians, soldiers, and artists. In the mid-1980s, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and made her first jump to film through the independent films of Derek Jarman. Many in the UK first saw Swinton in the 1992 film adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando along with various performance art pieces. American audiences would meet Swinton first in a series of quirky side roles before she had her first major villainous role as the White Witch Jadis in the Chronicles of Narnia series. Since then, she has made a name for herself as an actor with enormous range, solidifying her as a staple in independent cinema, especially in the films of Wes Anderson. Swinton holds an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, a couple of BAFTAs, and nominations for a variety of other awards. She was one of the earliest major stars to become an advocate for Palestine, speaking out against the plight of Palestine in 1987, the year she played an extraterrestrial robot on a peace mission to Earth who accidentally lands in Ammon, Jordan during the events of Black September in 1970. In 2023, she denounced the genocide in Gaza and criticises both Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump’s role in the atrocity. While a key signatory of every pro-Palestinian open letter (including Artists4Ceasefire), she has also called on the UK government to change its stance on the Palestine Action, currently labelled a terrorist organisation. She uses every opportunity to draw attention to the Palestinian people and advocates for boycotting Israeli goods and its film industry.

9. Angelina Jolie

Born in Los Angeles, the child of actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand, Angelina Jolie began acting at the age of seven. By sixteen, she had dedicated herself to professional acting, and came to prominence in the 1990s. She earned much deserved attention as well as an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance in 1999’s Girl, Interrupted. In 2001, while filming for her first major blockbuster role, Laura Croft: Tomb Raider, in Cambodia she witnessed the plight of refugees first hand, soon after becoming an Ambassador of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Following closely the Afghan and Sudanese refugee crises, she would eventually be promoted to Special Envoy to then High Commissioner António Guterres (before he was named Secretary General of the United Nations). She has also championed a variety of other causes including women’s rights, immigrant rights, children’s rights and welfare, education, as well as conservation and community development. She has also been a major voice for public health awareness, even undergoing extensive surgery following her mother’s passing from cancer as a preventative measure, advocating for others to do the same. Through her work with the UNHCR, Gaza had frequently been a place of concern for her efforts. Jolie and her father find themselves on opposite sides of the Palestine issue as Voight continues to belittle his daughter, labelling her an antisemite and spreader of misinformation. Jolie visited Palestine in 2026 at the Rafah border crossing to speak with those effected by the Israeli aggressions, especially the children, and oversee ongoing aid. She noted that what she saw was ‘worse than death’.

10. The Irish

Few people stand more in solidarity with Palestine and against western aggressions than the Irish. We can draw the connection back to a basic act of kindness when the Ottoman Sultanate sent aid to the famine-ridden Irish in the mid-nineteenth century. As time went on, the history of Ireland and Palestine shared a common locust of trauma: the British Empire. The same Black and Tans used to maintain order in Ireland at the turn of the century would be redeployed to British Mandated Palestine, using similar colonialist methods to keep the people in line. In fact, both territories were partitioned by the British. It is not surprising that the Republican movement in Ireland and the Liberation movement in Palestine look like mirror images of each other from their approach to their anticolonialism rhetoric. In fact, in the 1970s and 1980s, the Republican organisations of Ireland and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) established formal ties with one another. Since the recent escalation in 2023, many Irish actors have supported Film Workers for Palestine, an organisation that is 1,800 strong. Amongst those most vocal are Liam Cunningham, Nicola Coughlan, Cillian Murphy, Liam Neeson, Aisling Bea, Alison Oliver, Bronagh Gallagher, Denise Gough, and Jack Reynor. They join many other film workers on the other side of the camera. The Irish actor fraternity, highly respected throughout the world, remains one of the loudest voices for free Palestine.