“Stranger Things,” Moonlight, Hidden Figures Casts Blast Trump’s Muslim Ban in Powerful SAG Awards Speeches

“Stranger Things,” Moonlight, and Hidden Figures were among the winners at last night’s Screen Actors’ Guild Awards, and cast members from all three decried Trump’s political direction in passionate acceptance speeches. Accepting the award for Best Ensemble Drama, “Stranger Things’” David Harbour, who plays Chief Jim Hopper, called out politics of “fear, self-centeredness, and exclusivity” and invoked fiction’s ability “to cultivate a more empathetic and understanding society, by revealing intimate truths that serve as a forceful reminder to folks that when they feel broken and afraid and tired they are not alone.”

Moonlight’s Mahershala Ali said the film shows “what happens when you persecute people: They fold into themselves,” before describing how his mother, an ordained minister, eventually embraced his conversion to Islam. And of Hidden Figures, Taraji P. Henson said, “This story is about what happens when we put our differences aside.” Watch video of each speech below.

David Harbour:

We are united in that we are all human beings and we are all together on this horrible, painful, joyous, exciting, and mysterious ride that is being alive. Now, as we act in the continuing narrative of “Stranger Things,” we 1983 Midwesterners will repel bullies. We will shelter freaks and outcasts, those who have no homes. We will get past the lies. We will hunt monsters. And when we are at a loss amidst the hypocrisy and the casual violence of certain individuals and institutions we will, as per Chief Jim Hopper, punch some people in the face when they seek to destroy the weak and the disenfranchised and the marginalized. And we will do it with soul, with heart, and with joy. We thank you for this responsibility.

Mahershala Ali:

When we get caught up in the minutiae, the details that make us all different, I think there’s two ways of seeing that. There’s an opportunity to see the texture of that person, the characteristics that make them unique. And then there’s an opportunity to go to war about it, and to say that that person is different than me, and I don’t like you, so let’s battle. My mother is an ordained minister. I’m a Muslim. She didn’t do back flips when I called her to tell her I converted 17 years ago. But I tell you now, we put things to the side, and I’m able to see her, she’s able to see me — we love each other, the love has grown, and that stuff is minutiae.

Read “Inside the Spellbinding Sound of ‘Stranger Things’” on the Pitch. Also check out “Human After All: On Janelle Monáe in Hidden Figures and Moonlight,” “Director Barry Jenkins on the Music that Made Moonlight,” and “No More Classic Men: On Moonlight’s Bizarre Jidenna Moment” on the Pitch.

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