Susan Sarandon is opening up about the toll her political advocacy has allegedly taken on her already prolific Hollywood career.
“I’ve still had movies taken away recently because there are agencies that are telling people not to hire me still,” Sarandon, 79, claimed during a Sunday, September 6, press conference during the 2026 Venice International Film Festival, per Deadline. “But, that’s the power structure. I think within the people, certainly internationally, I feel welcome.”
Sarandon was dropped by her talent agency, United Talent Agency (UTA), in 2023 after speaking out in defense of Palestine amid Israel and the United States’ war in the region at a rally held in New York City. (The Oscar winner eventually apologized for her comments about Jewish individuals, stressing that she wanted to “show solidarity in the struggle against bigotry of all kinds.”)
In the wake of Sarandon’s pro-Palestine remarks, she discovered certain film studios withdrew offers of potential projects.
“It depends,” she told reporters of her recent career path. “If it’s a major studio, I think there is, not just with me but with other people, that have been told that that is impossible in terms of being able to do this film.”
Sarandon attended the Venice festival in support of her upcoming film The Echo Chamber, directed by Andrea Pallaoro and adapted from Bernardo Bertolucci’s final screenplay before his 2018 death.
“I thank Andrea for that because he didn’t listen to the warnings,” Sarandon recalled of her Echo Chamber director, 44. “There has been a change in terms of understanding of the situation, and I think [in] the general public, but there are still very strongly held positions within my industry that are held by Zionists and who have not relaxed their feelings towards me.”
She continued, “I found my family, I found my people, and I’m OK.”
Sarandon stars as famed musician Ava, whose character convinces a producer with a history of drug addiction (Luca Marinelli) to collaborate on her planned comeback album amid his complex relationship with a physiotherapist (Alicia Vikander).
“It’s all these events and memories, the things in rooms that make you relive moments and [remain] stuck in patterns, and how hard it can be to recreate yourself or change others,” Vikander, 37, teased to The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month about the film. “That is, at the core, very much what this film is.”
Per Vikander, the film is set across “different timelines.”
“[The timelines] almost [makes this movie] a mystery,” she quipped. “I actually did map out the script in chronological order, and that gave me a very different sense of what I was acting and gave me another view of my character and streamlined certain things. I haven’t seen the final film, but I know [Pallaoro] has moved around scenes.”
