Étiquettes
As actors age in Hollywood, they find fewer and fewer opportunities to earn a living, even those in the most privileged category: white males like me.
So a reader’s comment I came across below a recent article about me in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles captured my full, survival-mode attention. The comment was from a veteran Hollywood producer, Howard Rosenman, whose most recent credit is Call Me by Your Name, a film that earned four Academy Award nominations and won the 2018 Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.
The Jewish Journal article was titled “Actor Declines Netflix Audition Because of Israeli Producing Affiliation.” The article reported on my recent decision to honor the cultural boycott of Israel for Palestinian rights.
Rosenman’s comment below the story was brief and pointed:
So David Clennon wants to play that game? Two can play that game. I will NEVER work with that asshole David Clenon [sic] & I’ll get all my Jewish Producer friends as well.
A successful Hollywood producer is threatening to initiate a new blacklist against one somewhat successful but slightly washed-up actor: me. How did we get here?
My Previous Truthout Article
Several weeks ago, I was given the opportunity to audition for a new Netflix series, originally titled “Hit and Run,” now with the working title “Sycamore.” I was intrigued by the role and anxious for employment, so I set to work learning the audition scenes.
But I soon discovered that “Hit and Run”/“Sycamore” was an international co-production, a joint project of U.S. and Israeli television companies.
Since the Israeli massacre of 2,200 residents of Gaza in 2014, I have supported the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel under the larger umbrella of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. But I wasn’t sure whether U.S.-Israeli television co-productions should be included among cultural enterprises that socially conscious artists ought to reject. (I’m used to thinking in terms of professors or musical artists refusing to lecture or perform in Israeli venues.)
I consulted with a friend in the Los Angeles chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. She confirmed that, yes, this is a different type of cultural venture but one we should also boycott.
I informed my agents that I would not submit an audition video.
I also decided to make a public statement about my boycott action. Going public would likely offend many powerful Hollywood decision-makers, but I thought it would be worthwhile to try to generate a discussion within our industry of BDS in general and the cultural boycott in particular.
After my story was published on Truthout, I didn’t know what to expect. What I least expected was that the story would be picked up by any commercial news outlets. But within 24 hours, I heard about stories in the U.K.’s Daily Mail, Deadline Hollywood, The Hollywood Reporter, The Jerusalem Post and the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles.
Groupe Gaulliste Sceaux 