Danny Trejo Says He's 'Pro-Immigrant' Amid Backlash Over His Role in Pawn Shop
Danny Trejo has broken his silence over the backlash to his role in Pawn Shop, the Daily Wire production that Deadline describes as a pro-ICE film, made by Ben Shapiro's production company and Dallas Sonnier's Bonfire Legend. On Friday the LA-born Mexican-American actor insisted he is 'pro-immigrant.' The project has drawn protests from locals in Livingston, Montana. An actor's own politics and a film's politics are two different things, and Trejo is entitled to insist on the distinction. But a part in a film that has already become a political marker is not read by audiences as a neutral decision, and that is the squeeze he is in.
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Casting isn't endorsement. Actors take work, and a character's politics aren't automatically the actor's own.
Fine in the abstract, but Pawn Shop arrived with protests already attached to it. Saying yes to a production that has become a political marker is itself a choice, and it will be read as one.
Which leaves the genuinely hard question: not what Trejo believes, but whether a performance can be pulled apart from the production that surrounds it.