On Nov. 5, Mark Ruffalo settled in to watch the election night returns, expecting Kamala Harris to beat Donald Trump. But as one swing state after another tilted to the former and now future president, Ruffalo started to think about what the next morning would bring for America. “Going through my mind was just all the marginalized people that are going to be suffering from the unimaginable cruelty that’s going to be unleashed,” Ruffalo told Variety at the ACLU of Southern California’s Bill of Rights Awards on Sunday, referencing what he thinks Trump’s triumph means for women, immigrants and the LGBTQ community. “That was what was the most devastating. That we would let this happen.”
The “Avengers” actor isn’t the only member of the show business community cycling through the stages of grief in the aftermath of Trump’s return to power. After all, Hollywood threw its collective weight behind Harris, organizing Zoom fundraisers, sharing social media messages of support and stumping in battleground states. So her defeat was a shattering blow. And while Trump’s first win, in 2016, felt like a bolt from the blue, one that left the creative community eager to join the resistance, this time was different.
“In 2016, the reaction at the time felt like rage. People were motivated — inspired. They wanted to get up and get going,” says one agency insider. “In 2024, the reaction is much more somber and more resigned.”
Laura Friedman, a former film producer who won election to the U.S. House last week as a Democrat, says people in her circles were more distraught than they were eight years ago. “We have seen his bizarre behavior, his corruption and cronyism — we’ve seen all of that, and yet people still voted for him,” she says. “There’s a lot of fear.”
That anxiety was palpable at the glossy events that took place around Los Angeles last weekend. Celebrities still posed for photos on red carpets, but their megawatt smiles couldn’t disguise flickers of worry and sadness. “The last few days have been surreal,” Ciara, the Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter, said at Baby2Baby’s annual gala.
On Saturday, the star-studded premiere of Universal’s “Wicked” provided some distraction from the despair that enveloped the entertainment industry. Executives brought their kids, and famous fans of the musical (including Jennifer Lopez and Troye Sivan) escaped to Oz for the night. A couple days earlier, at the film’s L.A. junket, star Cynthia Erivo drew parallels between the fantastical story and the political moment.
“It’s OK to celebrate each other’s differences,” she said. “I hope it allows us to learn about empathy and what it is to open up to other people, even though they might not be like yourself.”
At the after-party many people appeared to be drowning their sorrows in the night’s custom cocktail, the Ozmopolitan. A few women at the “Wicked” bash even shared stories of cold-calling pharmacies in attempts to “hoard birth control.” They didn’t seem to be joking.
At the corporate level, some executives, such as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, congratulated Trump on his comeback, while Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav predicted that the new administration would be more willing to rubber-stamp future mergers. Yet there are concerns about how Trump, who has made no secret of his antipathy toward the media or his desire to exact revenge, may respond if Hollywood is too critical. “Saturday Night Live,” for instance, poked fun at this squeamishness during its cold open last weekend, which found the ensemble jokingly declaring their support for Trump. “I keep waking up in the middle of the night screaming. With joy, of course,” Ego Nwodim insisted.
If studios and streamers aren’t worried about enraging a thin-skinned commander in chief, they may be concerned about alienating the majority of voters who handed him a decisive victory. In this election, Trump captured the popular vote for the first time.
“This might reset some of their thinking about the attitudes of the American people,” actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt said at the Bill of Rights Awards. “If you asked your average Hollywood executive, ‘Who do you think will win the popular vote in 2024?’ very few of them would have said Donald Trump. … I don’t expect Hollywood to really do much other than pursue commercial interests, and I imagine those commercial interests will be realigned by this revelation.”
Others are still processing the outcome and want to take a moment to listen and reflect before deciding how to respond.
“There’s not a knee-jerk reaction,” says Liana Schwarz, who advises Hollywood donors on issues including climate, protecting democracy and women’s rights. “It is really about being introspective to figure this out.”
For celebrities committed to particular causes, the focus is on how to guard against the threats of a second Trump term.
“While there is shock, it’s not as deep as it was in 2016,” Schwarz says. “There’s more talk about getting to work versus organizing marches.”
Matt Donnelly, Angelique Jackson and Marc Malkin contributed to this report.
