Vocal Trump Supporter James Woods On Why His ‘Oppenheimer’ Involvement Was Kept Quiet: “I Basically Remain Invisible, Which Was Painful”

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James Woods reveals why he kept quiet about his involvement with Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. The actor and vocal Donald Trump supporter recently opened up in an interview why it was “painful” for him to sit back and not talk about the Cillian Murphy-starring film, saying he “took one for the team.” “When Oppenheimer came out, there was a discussion about my Twitter, and it was gently suggested that I basically remain invisible, which was painful,” he said on Megyn Kelly’s SiriusXM show.

Woods claims that his vociferous support for Trump on social media could affect the success of the biopic about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the film which was based on the 2005 bio American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J.

Sherwin, which Woods owned the rights to. “On the other hand, I’m a pragmatic person and I thought, a lot of people put their effort into this,” Woods explained. “So I’m just going to be an invisible pariah because the people who are going to be voting for Oscars, which is very important to films because it helps with the financial reward and historical archive in which it rests forever, I don’t want to deprive those people.” Woods’ thinking process was that he didn’t want someone associating his political views with the Oppenheimer title, turning off audiences from buying tickets to the movie. “I don’t want that to happen and have the clickbait story be, ‘James Woods is the executive producer, we’re not going to watch that movie!’” Woods said. “So I stepped back and basically took one for the team.

I was not even invited to the Producers Guild of America awards. And I’m a producer.” Oppenheimer had a successful box office run and won the top awards at the PGA’s, Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, BAFTA Film