Jamie Kennedy plays abortion-rights advocate Larry Lader in the new movie Roe v. Wade, but in a new interview with The Daily Beast, the Scream actor claims he didn’t realize the film — directed by Cathy Allyn and Nick Loeb and backed by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights — was actually an anti-abortion propaganda movie.
The movie also stars Jon Voight and Stacey Dash, both of whom have been outspoken about their conservative views, and it features cameos from Fox News commentator Tomi Lahren (who, interestingly, was suspended from The Blaze in 2017 after saying in an interview on The View that she believed women should have legal access to abortion) and controversial alt-right figure Milo Yiannopoulos. But Kennedy says he was drawn to the opportunity to work with Voight.
“In Hollywood, a lot of people were talking about this movie, and first and foremost, I’m an actor. I act,” he said. “I’ve worked with Jon Voight twice before, and he’s one of the greatest actors ever. I thought it was an important story, and to be honest, I got offered the role. It was a more dramatic part and a real offer, and so I did some research. I knew there was a lot of stuff we were walking into but in other parts in Hollywood, I have to read, read, read, and this was a nice offer.”
Kennedy revealed that many crew members walked off the set and quit the production once they realized the film’s intentions. “People would walk mid-fuckin’-stream and say, ‘I didn’t know it was going to be this,’ and that’s not good,” he said.
“It’s such a controversial subject. It’s so hard to comment on it as a man, you know, because we don’t conceive the baby,” he continued. “We help. Look, Cathy [Allyn] and Nick [Loeb], the directors, producers, and writers, they were like, ‘This is a movie, it’s gonna be about Roe v. Wade.’ They showed me all of these books. I was reading the script and like, ‘Did this happen?’ and they were like, ‘Here’s the quote.’ They introduced me to a lot of the history of Margaret Sanger, Larry Lader, and Planned Parenthood. I knew it was going to be a hot-button issue going in, but I saw what they were quoting from, and I was like, ‘That’s interesting. I didn’t know that.’ They said everything in this movie was taken from books. Whether they took some liberties, I don’t know. I didn’t fact-check everything.”
Kennedy also admitted he was unaware of the movie’s affiliation with the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.
“I didn’t even know that, and to be real with you, there’s a lot of people that produced this, and… I didn’t even know that,” he said. “I didn’t know the Catholic League did that. I believe in free speech, too. I just thought it was a very cool role. Did I know how controversial it was going to be? No. Did I know Nick’s background enough? No. Was it directed by a woman? Yes. But she left, and another woman came in. I’m in the middle as a human being. I’m a centrist.”
Ultimately, Kennedy says, he decided to ride it out because he “wanted to see what the final product was.”
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