Humanity should work collectively or else, Peter Sarsgaard (Lifeless Man Strolling, Boys Don’t Cry) instructed reporters throughout a Saturday roundtable interview performed as a part of the 59th version of the Karlovy Fluctuate Worldwide Movie Competition (KVIFF), by which he additionally defined why he joined a “No Kings” protest on U.S. President Donald Trump’s birthday, and why he doesn’t imagine in Elon Musk’s Mars colonization plans as a option to secure the human race.
Sarsgaard shared his ideas and insights after receiving the KVIFF President’s Award in the course of the pageant opening ceremony on Friday night time. In his acceptance speech, he spoke out towards divisions, particularly within the U.S., saying: “The enemies are the forces that divide us.” He added: “There isn’t any going it alone. As my nation retreats from its international obligations and tries to go it alone, additionally it is being divided into factions from inside — factions of politics, gender, sexuality, race, Jews break up over the battle.” Sarsgaard’s spouse, Maggie Gyllenhaal, identifies as Jewish.
Given such risks as local weather change and nuclear or different battle, Sarsgaard mentioned: “We’re all going to die. Our youngsters are all going to stay on the identical planet, and perhaps Elon [Musk]’s will stay on Mars. It doesn’t look that good to me. I feel it’s important to be born on Mars and by no means have seen Earth to suppose Mars is good.”
He continued: “We’re all fucked. So we’ve to attach. It’s quite simple. That’s not even political. I’m not political in that means. I’m not endorsing candidates.”
Sarsgaard first referenced Musk when requested about his upcoming Apple TV+ sequence, the e book adaptation Neuromancer, which he’s presently taking pictures. “I play a man who has created a sort of AI that’s used all around the world, and he’s principally probably the most highly effective, richest man on this planet,” he defined. “And since the world goes to shit, he has a spot the place he might be that’s [far] away. So, I’m taking part in this man who type of manages to essentially get away, away from Earth, Elon Musk-style – ‘we’ll simply go to Mars whereas this one goes to shit.’ There isn’t any place to go! So that actually me.”
Sarsgaard then talked about how apocalypse-fearing expertise and different billionaires have been constructing survivalist bunkers. “I’ve heard extra wealthy folks discuss this. Many rich persons are shopping for properties, say, in New Zealand, they usually’ve heard that that’s the place to be,” he defined. “There isn’t any fucking place to be until you could have a nuclear arsenal to maintain everybody else at bay!! There isn’t any place to go. We’re all on this collectively. In order that theme me. I used to be additionally a giant fan of the e book. I learn it in highschool, and I simply liked a whole lot of the language. I’m going to get to fulfill [the author] William Gibson. He’s within the present, and he had traces like ‘undulating tsunamis of pleasure.’ I bear in mind a whole lot of the language is so muscular and loopy.”
The star additionally shared that he has his personal place distant, however he doesn’t anticipate to be secure there if a disaster strikes. “I even have a bit of property that’s means out within the woods and has its personal water supply,” he mentioned. “It’s an excellent place to be, perhaps, for local weather change. And I hear folks say this generally: ‘The place’s one of the best place to be for local weather change?’ When it occurs, there’s no place to be, since you suppose the world goes to remain within the desert, the place there’s no water? Everybody’s going to go. They don’t care that you simply personal the property.”
Notably, the theme of AI and machines having an growing position in changing human interactions additionally performs into Sarsgaard’s fear a few lack of social connections. In 2023, Sarsgaard warned about AI. “I feel we will all actually agree that an actor is an individual and {that a} author is an individual, however apparently we will’t,” he mentioned on the Venice Worldwide Movie Competition again then. He urged the business to not hand over tales about connections “to the machines and the eight billionaires that personal them.”
Talking of billionaires, Sarsgaard instructed reporters in Karlovy Fluctuate on Saturday that, “I like going to a protest generally to take a look at all these folks. ‘We are able to do it! All of us imagine in one thing greater’.” The latest protest was a giant one, and he went to it together with his 13-year-old daughter. “I went to the one on Trump’s birthday, the anti-Trump’s birthday – the ‘No Kings’ protest,” he mentioned. “I went to the one which was proper outdoors the New York Public Library.”
Peter Sarsgaard on the 2025 Karlovy Fluctuate Worldwide Movie Competition opening ceremony the place he obtained the KVIFF President’s Award
Courtesy of FIlm Servis Karlovy Fluctuate
His daughter “was actually moved a few collective motion like that,” the actor recalled. “I do know it appears political, however to me, ‘No Kings’ shouldn’t be that political. All the facility consolidated within the fewest variety of folks seems like a nasty thought. I imagine, I suppose, in a sort of mixture of socialism and democracy. However I don’t know what to name it. I I feel there are different individuals who know that shit higher than I do. I simply need everyone to have an equal alternative.”
On the finish of his dialog with this group of reporters, Sarsgaard defined what’s subsequent for him after Neuromancer. It’s a movie with Swiss director Michael Koch that is named Erosion. Koch’s A Piece of Sky was made with non-actors, “so I’ll even be performing with largely non-actors,” the star defined. “We’re filming it in Lucerne. He wrote the position for me.”
He portrays a talented individual. “I play a mind surgeon,” Sarsgaard mentioned. “I’ve been going to all these mind surgical procedures, and I’ve been going to so many mind surgical procedures that at this level I’m sort of like feeling I may do it.”
He additionally shared concerning the position: “It’s a very big canvas for me as an actor. I’m in each body of the film, and it’s not only a lead position in that sense. It’s a personality who actually goes someplace. He begins in a single place, and he results in one other. I don’t know the place it will likely be. I’m curious, and I actually belief this director. He’s a very visible storyteller, and so I feel that might be an excellent mixture.”
The actor most just lately starred in director Tim Fehlbaum’s September 5. He has additionally wrapped manufacturing on Warner Bros.’ The Bride!, which additionally stars Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley and is ready for launch later this yr. Directed by his spouse, Maggie Gyllenhaal, the movie takes place in Thirties Chicago and places a spin on the basic Frankenstein story.
For his position as a person affected by dementia in Michel Franco’s Reminiscence, reverse Jessica Chastain, Sarsgaard gained the Volpi Cup for finest actor on the 2023 Venice pageant. In sequence, he has starred within the likes of Presumed Harmless, The Killing, and Dopesick.
In unveiling that he would obtain this yr’s honor, KVIFF organizers lauded Sarsgaard for being “famend for his vary and skill to entry what’s behind the often-complicated facades of the characters he performs.” Within the actor’s honor, the fest is screening the 2003 journalism drama Shattered Glass.