After previously saying that he felt blacklisted by Hollywood due to his support for President Donald Trump that began in 2015, Robert Davi this week said he feels like it’s continuing “to some extent.”
“It’s still ongoing, but it might be lightening up, I think,” the “Die Hard” actor told Raymond Arroyo on his “Arroyo Grande” podcast. “I don’t know, and it’s among certain elements of the industry. In other words, you’ll never know exactly where the button gets pushed.”
Davi said many times his manager will tell him someone is interested in him for a project, then it doesn’t come through because he suspects “it goes up the flagpole to somebody and then, all of a sudden, it gets wiped out, but it absolutely is because there’s no reason for it.”
But, he said there’s no way of gauging how many projects he’s lost because of his political leanings, especially since he knows there’s some he never even hears about.
He also revealed that he was twice asked to endorse liberal candidates.
“In 2016, some execs came to me and said, ‘Hey, if you now support so-and-so, name your ticket, and that happened twice, two different elections,” he said, but his quick answer was “Why would I do that?”
An outspoken conservative, Davi said he gets frustrated with “closeted” conservatives in the industry.
“If they — and there’s some powerful ones — and if they did come forward, if they had the courage to come forward, it would help many others that are closeted,” he said.
Davi added that people come up to him all the time to tell him that they follow him on social media, and thank him for what he’s been saying.
Invoking Frank Sinatra, he said that if the Rat Pack crooner liked someone, “they had a little bit of influence” because of their connection to him.
“So celebrities do have — even though they want to say celebrities have no [influence], they do. They have some kind of effect on the younger generation, in people that are influenced,” he continued.
The “Goonies” actor said he felt if he stayed quiet about his views, “there’s going to be people out there that are going to feel even more isolated.”
Even if fans come up to him and say they enjoyed his work but are now disappointed in his political leanings, he told Arroyo that he explains to them his views don’t change the work he’s done.
“As opposite ends of the spectrum as I am to Robert De Niro, I’ll go see a film that he’s in,” he revealed. “I won’t not go see a film,” he explained, adding that his daughter had them watching De Niro’s 2009 movie “Everybody’s Fine” over the holidays, which he said has a “terrific message.”
He joked as he was watching the film he thought, “I forgive him.”
