Pedro Pascal, one of the stars of Ari Aster’s new modern Western “Eddington,” spoke carefully at the Cannes Film Festival when asked about recent deportations in the U.S.
The A24 film, which will release in July, is set during the Covid-19 pandemic and involves “a standoff between a small-town sheriff and mayor … as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico.”
Pascal was hesitant to speak when asked about recent deportations, saying, “It’s obviously very scary for an actor who participated in the movie to speak on issues like this.”
“I want people to be safe and to be protected. I want to live on the right side of history,” he said. “I am an immigrant. My parents are refugees from Chile. We fled a dictatorship and I was privileged enough to grow up in the United States after asylum in Denmark.”
“If it weren’t for that, I don’t know what would have happened to us,” Pascal continued. “I stand by those protections always.”
The cast — featuring Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone and Austin Butler — was asked if they feared re-entering the U.S. after making a film with bold, political statements, Variety reported, to which Pascal replied: “Fear is the way that they win.”
“Eddington” plunges into the U.S. pandemic psyche, plotting a small-town feud that swells to incorporate nationwide events, including mask mandates, the killing of George Floyd and right-left divisions.
Aster’s most politically ambitious film yet received mixed reactions at Cannes, with some critics hailing it as an eerily accurate film about contemporary America and others calling it a tedious and wayward rumination.
Filmmakers were asked at Saturday’s press conference how much they felt the film reflected current times.
“I wrote this film in a state of fear and anxiety about the world, and I wanted to try to pull back and show what it feels like to live in a world where nobody can agree on what is real anymore,” Aster said. “The last 20 years, we’ve fallen into this age of hyperindividualism.”
Pascal compared the director to a whistleblower, “someone on the inside being like, ‘This is what’s happening.’”
The Associated Press contributed.
