I have never seen Gabriel Basso act in anything. Wait, no, scratch that. IMDb is telling me he’s in Juror #2 which I just watched on Max. I had to look it up to remember that he played the defendant, but to be fair, it was a lackluster movie. These days, Basso is most well-known for leading Netflix’s The Night Agent, as well as having starred as JD Vance in the 2020 film adaptation of Vance’s memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. About a month ago, Basso hyped the second season of Night Manager by talking about how he’s ready to leave acting, he dislikes the public influence of film & TV (aka his industry) and he thinks the federal form of government is illegitimate, but he’s not a political person. Well, just in case you didn’t get the message the first time, Basso reaffirmed his ‘actors should not be political or influential’ ethos on the Great Company podcast. To frame the context, the podcast is set up around Basso painting the host’s portrait, which Basso begins by saying “I’m gonna start with what I know, which is black and white. That’s how I see the world.”
“I don’t believe that actors should be famous,” Basso said while on the “Great Company” podcast on January 31, after being asked if he enjoyed the fame that came from starring in the popular Netflix series.
The actor spoke out against celebrities who use their platform to deliver political messages, saying this went far beyond the scope of their job.
“We’re saying words that we’re told to say,” he began. “We’re told how to say them, we’re told where to stand. And then we’re telling people how to vote?” he mocked.
“Dude, your job is illegitimate in that way… Like you should be quiet, you should do your job. You should be a jester, entertain people. Then shut the f— up,” he continued.
“We’re court jesters. We’re entertaining. We’re public servants. We’re there to perform, to entertain,” he added. “And then all of a sudden, the jester, because he’s in the courtroom, starts to be like, ‘I might want to go sit on the throne!’”
Basso said that also applied to government officials, whom, he said, should be speaking for the people, not promoting themselves.
“You should be representing me… like, what are you doing?” he asked.
The actor’s comments come after a recent poll found that Republicans are largely averse to celebrities sharing their political opinions.
The AP-NORC poll, released in December, found 61% of Republicans strongly/somewhat disapproved of celebrities speaking out about political issues, while 27% neither approved nor disapproved and 11% strongly/somewhat approved.
For Democrats, just 20% strongly/somewhat disapproved, while 40% neither approved nor disapproved and 39% strongly/somewhat approved.
Based on these comments, I can only surmise that Basso must well and truly want out of show business. In which case, by all means, keep trashing your industry and profession. Taking it from the top: Basso doesn’t think actors should weigh in on politics. Who wants to break the news to him that he’s just done exactly that? As for actors being given scripts for work, the part where Basso says, “We’re told how to say them, we’re told where to stand. And then we’re telling people how to vote?” For one thing, I think really great actors eschew being told how to say lines and being locked in with rigid blocking; they have a creative spark that makes them want to try new approaches and vary interpretations of the character. And anyone who has that creativity in them, who makes their livelihood out of imagining being in someone else’s shoes, yeah, a person with that kind of mind and spirit may have a few thoughtful comments to share on what’s going on in the world around them. By the time Basso gets to the court jester wanting to be on the throne, first of all, the analogy is not as original or clever as he thinks it is. And second, saying it against the backdrop of the current joke occupying the White House, is quite rich.
All that being said, Basso did offer some sound advice that I’d like to repeat back to him: “You should be quiet.”
photos via Instagram and credit Getty