Actor Robert De Niro and filmmaker Spike Lee have expressed fear that the election between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris could be “very, very close.”
Lee and De Niro, both of whom have been critical of Trump since he first ran in 2016, expressed their sentiments during a Q&A session following a screening of legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola’s latest film Megalopolis. De Niro said he saw parallels in the film between the election and said that Trump Republicans must be defeated this November.
“I see the things in Francis’ film about that, the parallels and so on. To me, it’s not over ’till it’s over and we have to go at this wholeheartedly to beat the Republicans – those Republicans, they’re not real Republicans – and beat Trump. It’s that simple. We cannot have that type of person. Everybody has to get out there and vote,” said De Niro.
De Niro also said during the Q&A that the former president “cannot do anything” and “cannot hold anything together.”
“He wants to destroy the country,” he asserted.
Lee advised people to “register to vote and show up.”
“This election is going to be very, very close. I’m a big sports fan and, the expression you used, it’s not over ’till it’s over. We cannot just think that the game is over when it’s not,” said Lee.
While De Niro and Lee were openly political in their statements, Coppola offered a nuanced perspective and asserted that people can “disagree.” It should be noted that Coppola specifically said in past interviews that he cast certain actors, like Trump supporter Jon Voight, to put put forward a message about dialogue. He also told Rolling Stone that he did not want his movie to be deemed “some woke Hollywood production that’s simply lecturing viewers.”
“What I didn’t want to happen is that we’re deemed some woke Hollywood production that’s simply lecturing viewers. The cast features people who were canceled at one point or another. There were people who are archconservatives and others who are extremely politically progressive. But we were all working on one film together. That was interesting, I thought,” he said.
