Actor Javier Bardem exclaimed “Free Palestine” when presenting during the Oscars telecast on Sunday night, a cause he has championed since Israel’s incursion into Gaza since the October 7 terrorist attack.
“No to war, and free Palestine” Bardem exclaimed in an unscripted moment before he launched into his speech to present Best International Feature.
Bardem became an active supporter of the Palestinian cause following Israel’s incursion into Gaza after the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas. In September of last year, for instance, Bardem said he would not work with any company supporting Israel during its war in Gaza.
If you find out a company you’re going into business with is in business with Israel, what do you do?” Variety asked Bardem at the Emmy Awards in 2025.
“I won’t work,” Bardem emphatically stated. “I cannot with somebody that justifies or supports the genocide. I can’t. It’s as simple as that. We should not be able to that, in this industry or any industry.”
Prior to that, Bardem joined “more than a thousand Hollywood celebrities and international film industry insiders” in pledging to “boycott the Israeli film industry” due to the war in Gaza.
“The large number of members of the film industry from Europe, the UK, and the U.S.A. signed onto a pledge by a group calling itself Film Workers for Palestine (FWFP),” Breitbart News reported.
As Breitbart News reported earlier this month, Spanish actor Aldo Comas criticized celebrities for wearing “Free Palestine” pins while having no opinion about other regimes like Iran.
The actor expressed his views when speaking with reporters ahead of the Goaya Awards.
“I haven’t heard anyone talk about the 50,000 people who died in the last two months in Iran. No one talks about it. I see lots of pins about everything else, but not about that. I don’t know. Maybe we should also be ending theocratic that murder their own people. I don’t know,” he said.
When pressed on whether a film awards ceremony is the “best place” for such statements, Comas said that artists should stay in their lane.
“War is never cool. But who are we? We’re jesters, singers, painters, and actors. Let others have the opinions,” he said.
