Brett Gelman told SiriusXM’s Ron Bennington that he doesn’t think awards shows, like the Academy Awards, should get political.
The actor mentioned “The Zone of Interest” director Jonathan Glazer’s speech at this year’s awards, which referenced the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel and ongoing warfare in Gaza and grabbed attention with Glazer stating that he refuted his Jewishness being hijacked. Gelman questioned why nobody in the room at the Oscars challenged it.
“When Jonathan Glazer made that speech and we saw people wearing those red pins, I don’t think that the Oscars should be a political event. I don’t think awards shows should be a political event,” he said. “But if somebody’s going there and is not telling the full truth, I know that there are people in that audience who knew the full truth and who, or maybe they don’t. I don’t know. I just, that nobody got up and said, ‘This is f–king bulls–t, man.’ You’re accepting an award for a Holocaust movie and you don’t even mention the victims of the Holocaust?”
Gelman went on to share his thoughts on supporting Israel and the motivation behind the Oct. 7 attack, criticizing Glazer’s perspective.
“You just equate Israel to the Nazis? Are you out of your f–king mind? What are you doing and do you not see what’s happening in the streets of your city of London and our universities? Do you not hold any responsibility for what you’re saying here?” he continued. “And I’m sorry. Does Hamas not exist? Do you believe that they are just the resistance? Do you believe this lie that Oct. 7th happened as a reaction to Palestinian persecution? It absolutely did not. It was full Islamic jihad. That’s all it was. It was the conquest to erase Israel. It was not revenge for anything that has happened to the Palestinian people.”
The actor had earlier recounted moments when Jews at Oscars parties expressed quiet support for his pro-Israel stance and comments when they felt like they couldn’t speak up themselves.
“I went to some of these Oscar parties. I got Jews in the shadows going, ‘Come here, come here. Brett, Brett, come here,’ and then I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah, yeah. Hey,’” he said. “‘I just want to say thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. You know, I can’t say anything. You know, two of my clients are with the Islamic… and they’re doing real well, real well, so you know, I can’t say anything, but for me and my family, it means so much.’”
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