Actor Dennis Quaid said on Joe Rogan’s podcast on Thursday that there were “multiple attempts to cancel me” while he was filming a movie in which he plays former President Ronald Reagan, lamenting the ideological conformity of Hollywood that “shuts out” conservatives.
“Especially in Hollywood, one ideology dominates the entire industry,” Rogan, host of the popular Spotify podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience,” told Quaid during Thursday’s panel.
Rogan, a stand-up comedian who appeared on NBC’s “NewsRadio” comedy show in the 1990s, said his time in Hollywood taught him that “if you have a different opinion on things, you never speak out because it could hurt your career.”
“They’re going to blacklist you,” Logan said. The news site Mediaite reported this.
Quaid, best known for starring in films like “Money Money” and “Far Away,” agreed, telling Logan, “It will happen.”
“There were several attempts to cancel me while we were making ‘Reagan,'” Quaid said, adding that the attempts “were kind of half-hearted, I think.”
“But it happened. It’s not right,” Quaid said.
In fall 2020, Quaid appeared in a public service announcement showing him being interviewed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was then director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
The PSA was aimed at educating the public about COVID-19 and the importance of following health guidelines.
In an Instagram video, Quaid slammed the media’s reaction to the PSA, saying he was “outraged and deeply disappointed” by claims that he was effectively endorsing then-President Donald Trump, who would go on to lose the election just weeks later.
“Cancel culture media is alleging that I ran campaign ads and endorsements for Donald Trump and was generously paid from CDC misappropriated funds,” Quaid said in a September 2020 Instagram post.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” he added, saying the PSA was about “raising awareness of COVID-19 and what we can do to prevent lives from being lost to this terrible virus.”
Quaid has since endorsed Trump, saying the former president was “my dick” in an interview with TV host Piers Morgan in May.
Quaid slammed Facebook, a subsidiary of Meta, after the company admitted to restricting advertising for Quaid’s new film, “Reagan.”
“They said it was a mistake,” Quaid told Logan. “They said it was an automated system that detected it.”
To which Logan responded: “Yeah, that’s convenient.”
Quaid earlier this week accused Facebook of “throttling advertising” for the film, which is set to premiere in select theaters on August 30.
“Facebook is once again censoring the free flow of ideas and deciding what is best for us to see and hear.” Quaid told Newsweek:“This time I’m just curbing advertising and promotion for my film about Ronald Reagan,” he added.
“Are we becoming, like the former Soviet Union, a nation of techno-oligarchs who control the platforms of groupthink and silence individuals and ‘other’ groups?”
The controversy erupted when the film’s digital marketing director, Eric McClellan, tried to promote an ad for the film that included a photo of Quaid playing President Reagan along with a quote from the late president.
“Don’t let anyone tell you that America’s best days are behind us or that the American spirit has been defeated,” the ad read.
“We’ve seen that victory so many times in our lives that it’s hard to believe right now.”
Facebook allowed McClellan’s post but did not allow him to “promote” it as a paid ad to gain a larger audience because the ad “mentions politicians and is about sensitive issues that could influence public opinion or voting patterns and affect the outcome of an election or pending legislation.”
According to Newsweek magazine, Facebook temporarily suspended the official account for the “Reagan” film after it posted video clips of Quaid talking about the movie at least twice.
A Facebook spokesperson told Newsweek: “This happened because our automated systems incorrectly determined that content about President Reagan required prior approval in accordance with our social issues, elections and politics ads policies.”
“This was a mistake and the advertising restrictions have been lifted.”
“Reagan,” a biopic about the 40th president, stars Quaid and Penelope Ann Miller as Nancy Reagan, with Trump supporter Jon Voight playing former KGB agent Viktor Petrovich.
The film charts Reagan’s life from his time as president of the Screen Actors Guild to his tenure as Governor of California and President of the United States.
The Post has reached out to Facebook for comment.
