James Woods said the fact that people likely didn’t know he was an executive producer on “Oppenheimer” was by design.
Speaking with Megyn Kelly on “The Megyn Kelly Show,” Woods revealed that there were talks upon “Oppenheimer’s” release about the actor’s X account — particularly that it was pro-Trump.
“When “Oppenheimer” came out, there was a discussion about my Twitter, and it was gently suggested that I basically remain invisible, which was painful,” Woods shared Thursday. “On the other hand, I’m a pragmatic person and I thought, a lot of people put their effort into this so I’m just going to be an invisible pariah because [of] the people who are going to be voting for Oscars, which is very important.”
He continued, “I don’t want to deprive those people. I don’t want to have some nutcase come out of the woodwork, fabricate some ridiculous story about me — I’ve had a million of them said, they’re all lies. I don’t want that to happen and have the clickbait story be, ‘James Woods is the executive producer, we’re not going to watch that movie!’ So I stepped back and basically took one for the team.”
Woods further said that even though he was an executive producer on the film, he wasn’t invited to attend the Producers Guild Awards, where the movie won the top prize.
Kelly then harped on the need for conservative actors to stay “quiet” when it comes to their political beliefs if they want to find success. “If you ever want to do it again in Hollywood, or if you want to make a career there as a young person, different story,” the host said. “You must keep quiet.”
Despite his thoughts on Hollywood, Woods did cite a pair of very liberal stars — Whoopi Goldberg and Rob Reiner — as friends.
“I love Whoopi Goldberg, I hate her politics,” he said. “I think she’s insane with her politics. But I worked with Whoopi on a movie, ‘The Ghost of Mississippi,’ it got an Oscar nomination, it was a great experience.”
Woods later added, “Rob Reiner is a patriot. And by that I mean he is passionate about ideas that he believes in. And the things that he believes in are, to him, the way to make America great again. Now, it may not be great in the way that some of the ideas I’d like to see to make America great again — but I believe that he truly cares about this country.”
Watch the full “Megyn Kelly Show” clip, above.
