Director Kenneth Lonergan is defending Mark Ruffalo after the actor was accused of being antisemitic.
“Mark Ruffalo has been talking about Israel since long before the Gaza war,” Lonergan, 63, wrote in a letter to The Hollywood Reporter published on Monday, August 31. “Apart from some routine social media ping-ponging, nobody serious I know of had accused him of antisemitism. Now Paramount has done just that, in the face of his sustained attacks on David Ellison and the upcoming Paramount merger.”
On Friday, August 21, Ruffalo, 58, took to Instagram to criticize the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger while tying billionaire Larry Ellison — father of Paramount CEO David Ellison — and Oracle to Israel’s military actions in Gaza. In his post, he shared a recent clip of Safra Catz, Oracle’s executive vice chair and a Paramount board member, speaking about “profoundly scary technologies” Oracle shared with the Israeli government following the October 7 terror attacks in 2023. (Over 70,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched military operations in the region, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, including more than 20,000 children.)
Paramount Skydance responded to Ruffalo’s public criticism with a statement the corporation later denounced as antisemitic.
“We are, as always, troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute,” a Paramount spokesperson said in a statement on Friday. “Words like ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid,’ applied to a corporate transaction, aren’t just wrong — they’re a bridge too far, and they cheapen the very real suffering those words are meant to describe. This doesn’t deserve a response in kind — and to be clear, we don’t tolerate prejudice of any kind, against anyone.”
In his letter defending Ruffalo, Lonergan continued, “While I hope I share Mark’s basic humanitarianism, and likewise deplore the conduct of the war as I understand it, I disagree profoundly with many of his positions on the Middle Israel, Gaza, and Iran’s constellation of fanatical Islamic fundamentalist proxies. I think we share an equally dim view of fanatical Messianic Zionist fundamentalism.”
Lonergan, who worked with Ruffalo on the 2000 drama You Can Count on Me, added that he and the Marvel actor have been friends for 30 years.
“The notion that he is antisemitic is overtly preposterous, and the accusation itself a cynical and disgusting lie. I wish the Simon Wiesenthal Center, at least, would review his remarks and their own response, and clarify where exactly they detect any antisemitism,” he noted. “A similar indictment of Mark for his latest social media screed — a screed, mind you, as it was characterized this week by K.J. Yossman of Variety — comes from Ari Infel and the Creative Community for Peace. It is likewise evidence-free, scurrilous and shameful. Shame on its authors and signers — especially those few signatures who know Mark, have worked closely with him and know better.”
Lonergan concluded, “I have no problem with anybody who wants to contest Mark’s – or anyone’s – ideas. But like all such deflections, the tissue-paper accusations levied at him by his targets lead directly back to the soft places in their own positions, which they can’t or won’t defend by actually addressing what he has to say. It’s an old trick, and a sorry one.”
Ruffalo previously defended his remarks in an X post on Saturday, August 22.
“The accusation that I am antisemitic is appalling and fundamentally dishonest,” the 13 Going on 30 actor wrote. “Criticizing the actions of the Israeli prime minister, a military technology contract, or the executives who supply it is not the same as criticizing Jewish people. This critical and necessary dialogue is then dishonestly framed as being anti-Israel.”
He continued, “To be clear, my views come from my own political convictions and should never be interpreted as hostility toward Jewish people, for whom I have deep love and respect. Everything I know about acting, activism, and humanism has been profoundly shaped by the Jewish friends, colleagues, and loved ones who have been integral and family throughout every point of my life.”
