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An empirical analysis of political activity in Hollywood

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Abstract

Film plays an important role in the American political system, and forms an important branch of the mass media. I analyze the political contributions of a sample of 996 top film actors, directors, producers, and writers, correlating them with demographic, family, and career success variables. I find that contributions flow overwhelmingly to left-of-center parties and organizations. I theorize about the causes of this bias, and argue empirically that, while demographic variables are not completely irrelevant, Hollywood liberalism is primarily a function of high, publicly visible incomes, and family connections. Neither religion nor birthplace effects seem to affect political activity in the film business.

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Notes

  1. As early as the 1932 presidential campaign, contributions from Hollywood were substantial (Brownstein 1992). The “Hollywood for Roosevelt Committee” was among the most important contributors in the 1940 presidential campaign, and of the 1944 campaign, Overacker (1945) writes, “Without Hollywood’s substantial support, the (Democratic) Party would have been in a sad financial plight.”

  2. For instance, at a 1990 Hollywood dinner for former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley, Disney’s then-chairman Michael Eisner explained that he organized the event in order to “send a signal to the press and the nation that will create so much pressure that Bill will have to run (for President) in 1992” (quoted in Brownstein 1992). Due to political circumstance, Bradley chose not to run in 1992, but did eventually run in 2000, and received a substantial amount of financial support from Hollywood, as shown in the analysis of that election below.

  3. http://www.hsx.com/. The site is owned and operated as a subsidiary of Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P.

  4. E.g., Britney Spears, DMX, etc.

  5. In the few cases in which there was uncertainty about whether a contribution belonged to a particular individual, the contribution was not assigned.

  6. In a few cases, data were missing on these variables. For these individuals, I typically assigned the most common value. Thus, for instance, if I did not know whether the individual was college-educated, I assumed he was not.

  7. Career film histories were derived from the All Movie Guides at http://www.allmovie.com.

  8. In some cases, a film was produced for television, the “straight-to-video” market, or as a student film or documentary, and so no box office data were available.

  9. During the early portion of the sample period, total contributions to an individual candidate were limited to $1,000 per donor per election, but “soft money” contributions to national parties were essentially unlimited. After the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, which was implemented beginning in January, 2003, contribution limits were raised to $2,000, but soft money contributions were substantially restricted.

  10. For example, Rob Reiner directed The American President (1995), Oliver Stone directed Platoon (1986), Wall Street (1987), and JFK (1992), and Nora Ephron authored the screenplay for Silkwood (1983).

  11. Nick Clooney, an unsuccessful candidate for the House of Representatives from Kentucky, is the father of George Clooney, a top movie actor.

  12. Because box office returns are being treated as a proxy for income, I used the general urban CPI to deflate nominal box office dollars, instead of a film or entertainment-specific price index. Because the individuals in the sample are concentrated in certain areas of the country (southern California and New York, e.g.), and because their typical consumption bundle differs somewhat from the median American’s (more security services and formal wear, e.g.), the use of the general CPI may be inappropriate, however.

  13. A variant on this theory models contributions as one side of a reciprocal gift exchange between the film industry and politicians. Through various institutions, including unions, coveted industry-wide awards (Frey 2005), and personal and familial networks, actors and directors may develop favorable sentiments for each other, which they seek to express through gift-giving. The usual inadequacy of monetary gifts to fully express emotional sentiments (Prendergast and Stole 2001; Cameron 1989) is exacerbated among film stars, both because many of them are very wealthy, and because their trade emphasizes the importance of personality in ways most other industries do not (Offer 1997). Thus, actors and directors may contribute to politicians in order to impel government policy for which the apparent individual instrumental benefit may be quite small, but which benefit the class of actors or directors as a whole to a substantial degree (see Akerlof 1982 for a similar example of behavior among workers in a firm).

  14. For modeling purposes, I ignore contributions to independent candidates and PACs.

  15. Brownstein (1992) quotes Robert Redford as saying, “We get paid so much money just for being personalities. Other people are out there digging trenches and working in dangerous jobs…that guilt produces some desire for credibility, so they go into campaigns.” Professional athletes are also publicly wealthy, but are usually not prominent in politics. Unlike film stars, however, athletes’ fan bases are usually local to the metro area where their team plays. Therefore, participation in local public works projects provides more efficient publicity than involvement in national political campaigns. Moreover, frequent movie consumers tend to be politically left-of-center and less religious in comparison with those who watch films irregularly (Franklin 2006), while sports audiences are typically more conservative. It is difficult to know to what degree such audience sorting is a cause of Hollywood’s liberalism or an effect of it, however.

  16. If utility were extremely concave in warm glow, an increase in income would raise the value of inframarginal contributions in producing warm glow, and due to the concavity of the utility function, the star might then wish to reduce his contributions on the margin.

  17. Differentiating equation 4A and solving for the comparative static (again assuming for simplicity that U 12  = 0), we have

    \( \frac{{{\text{d}}C_{D} }}{{{\text{d}}\theta }} = \frac{{p^{2} U_{2} \Uppsi_{1} - p^{2} (\theta - \tfrac{1}{2})C_{D} \left[ {U_{2} \Uppsi_{11} + U_{22} \Uppsi_{1}^{2} } \right]}}{{U_{11} + p^{2} (\theta - \tfrac{1}{2})^{2} \left[ {U_{2} \Uppsi_{11} + U_{22} \Uppsi_{1}^{2} } \right]}}, \) which is negative so long as θ is sufficiently low.

  18. See Mandorff (2006) for some fascinating accounts.

  19. Unfortunately, in most cases, it was impossible to determine current religious intensity, or to distinguish between different denominations among those with Christian backgrounds.

  20. When there was no evidence to suggest a Jewish background, the Jewish variable was coded as zero; thus, this variable should be interpreted to indicate individuals who have commonly identified themselves as Jewish or from a Jewish family background.

  21. Of the 30% of actors who are foreign born, nearly 73% are from English-speaking countries: the British Isles, including Ireland (50%), Canada (15%), Australia and New Zealand (7.9%). Those from English-speaking countries make up only 63% of the foreign-born group among non-actors.

  22. Thus, Medved (2003) purports that stars who do not “toe the line” on leftist politics face discrimination in hiring.

  23. DeVany and Walls (2004) show that the distribution of box office returns is Pareto, with an infinite variance.

  24. No less than Charlton Heston argues for this view (quoted in Sherman 1990):

    Most actors are faintly surprised by success, or even employment. How do they speak out? They speak out as liberals. They feel subconsciously guilty that somehow it worked for them and it didn’t work as well for those people. How come the guy who won the sonnet reading contest at Northwestern is selling aluminum siding, and I didn’t win, and I’m acting?

  25. In Rothman and Lichter’s (1984) survey, 97.1% of the Hollywood elite were “pro-choice”, and substantially higher fractions agreed with liberal statements on homosexuality and extramarital sex than those in other elite professions.

  26. In the very earliest days of film, there was substantial Republican support among actors. According to Brownstein (1992), Al Jolson wrote campaign songs for both Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge. However, by the 1930s, political contributions from Hollywood to Republicans were virtually nonexistent (see the surveys by Overacker 1937, 1941, and 1945), and with the exception of a brief period during the 1950s, have remained that way up to the present.

  27. HUAC investigations of Hollywood had begun in 1938, but it was not until 1947 that systematic subpoenaing activity began.

  28. Becker and Murphy (2000) model such mechanisms.

  29. Specifically, given the vector of estimated Probit coefficients, b, the coefficients presented in the table are calculated as \( \varphi (\overline{x} b)b, \) where φ is the Gaussian probability distribution function, and \( \overline{x} \) is a vector of the means of all continuous covariates and zero for all categorical covariates.

  30. This is the only variable for which the exclusion of outliers changes the results qualitatively. Including Michael Douglas (who is Jewish) makes the effect of being Jewish on contribution amount positive and significant.

  31. Separating out New York from California, or including more detailed birthplace variables such as census region dummies similarly does not evince any statistically significant result.

  32. Further analyses showed that neither a separation of those born in English-speaking countries from others, nor a separation among the non-North American English-speaking countries evinced any statistically significant differences in either the propensity to contribute or the amount contributed by country of origin.

  33. Under Rosen’s (1982) theory of “superstars,” the distribution of income among stars is highly concentrated. This evidence suggests that the concentration of contributions is much less concentrated, as might be expected given the strict limits on individual contributions imposed by law during most of the sample period. Similarly, in the specifications with average box office returns as a regressor, if a quadratic term is added to the specification, the coefficient on that term is negative (though not statistically significant).

  34. As in the previous analysis, I exclude the two biggest contributors from Table 2 in the contribution levels regressions.

  35. Hispanics are excluded here because there are not enough of them (2) to derive standard errors for the coefficient. They are grouped with whites for this analysis.

  36. Warner Brothers’ films opposing German fascism in the 1930s (Ross 2004), for instance, or the heroism of leftist Presidential candidates in major political films of the 1990s, including The Distinguished Gentleman, The American President, and Dave (Scott 2000). On the other hand, the instance of Michael Eisner’s refusal to distribute Fahrenheit 9/11, a film highly critical of President George W. Bush, suggests that conservative politics may play a role as well.

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful for comments and suggestions from David Prindle, Bob Tollison, Robert Tamura, and seminar participants at Clemson University. J. Kerry Waller provided excellent research assistance in the production of the data. All errors herein are the author’s.

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Correspondence to Todd D. Kendall.

Appendix

Appendix

Names of individuals in sample

F. Murray Abraham

Joey Lauren Adams

Mark Addy

Ben Affleck

Casey Affleck

Liam Aiken

Jessica Alba

Jason Alexander

Joan Allen

Tim Allen

Woody Allen

Pedro Almodovar

Robert Altman

Anthony Anderson

Gillian Anderson

Paul Anderson

Wes Anderson

Paul Thomas Anderson

Jennifer Aniston

Penelope Ann Miller

Shiri Appleby

Christina Applegate

Alan Arkin

Darren Aronofsky

David Arquette

Patricia Arquette

Rosanna Arquette

Courteney Cox Arquette

Sean Astin

Rowan Atkinson

Charlotte Ayanna

Dan Aykroyd

Hank Azaria

Kevin Bacon

Simon Baker

Alec Baldwin

William Baldwin

Christian Bale

Fairuza Balk

Eric Bana

Antonio Banderas

Javier Bardem

Ellen Barkin

Jacinda Barrett

Drew Barrymore

Kim Basinger

Angela Bassett

Kathy Bates

Michael Bay

Adam Beach

Sean Bean

Warren Beatty

Kate Beckinsale

Jason Behr

Bill Bellamy

Maria Bello

Monica Bellucci

Jim Belushi

Roberto Benigni

Annette Bening

Wes Bentley

Tom Berenger

Candice Bergen

Gael Garcia Bernal

Halle Berry

Luc Besson

Paul Bettany

Leslie Bibb

Michael Biehn

Jessica Biel

Kathryn Bigelow

Jason Biggs

Juliette Binoche

Thora Birch

Lucas Black

Jack Black

Selma Blair

Rachel Blanchard

Cate Blanchett

Brenda Blethyn

Orlando Bloom

Marc Blucas

Billy Bob Thornton

David Boreanaz

Kate Bosworth

Raoul Bova

Danny Boyle

Lara Flynn Boyle

Jesse Bradford

Zach Braff

Kenneth Branagh

Marlon Brando

Benjamin Bratt

Andre Braugher

Martin Brest

Jordana Brewster

Jeff Bridges

Jim Broadbent

Matthew Broderick

Adam Brody

Adrien Brody

Josh Brolin

Albert Brooks

Pierce Brosnan

Joy Bryant

Sandra Bullock

Edward Burns

Saffron Burrows

Ellen Burstyn

Tim Burton

Steve Buscemi

Jake Busey

Gerard Butler

Gabriel Byrne

Rose Byrne

James Caan

Scott Caan

Nicolas Cage

Dean Cain

Michael Caine

James Cameron

Bruce Campbell

Martin Campbell

Neve Campbell

Jane Campion

Nick Cannon

Linda Cardellini

Robert Carlyle

John Carpenter

Jim Carrey

Helena Bonham Carter

Nick Cassavetes

Vincent Cassel

Jim Caviezel

Cedric the Entertainer

Lacey Chabert

Jackie Chan

Stockard Channing

Ben Chaplin

David Chappelle

Chevy Chase

Don Cheadle

Joan Chen

Morris Chestnut

Maggie Cheung

China Chow

Erika Christensen

Hayden Christensen

Patricia Clarkson

John Cleese

George Clooney

Glenn Close

Ethan Coen

Joel Coen

Rob Cohen

Toni Collette

Clifton Collins Jr.

Robbie Coltrane

Chris Columbus

Sean Combs

Jennifer Connelly

Sean Connery

Harry Connick Jr.

Billy Connolly

Steve Coogan

Rachael Leigh Cook

Jennifer Coolidge

Chris Cooper

Sofia Coppola

Francis Ford Coppola

John Corbett

Kevin Costner

Brian Cox

Daniel Craig

Wes Craven

James Cromwell

David Cronenberg

Cameron Crowe

Russell Crowe

Billy Crudup

Tom Cruise

Penelope Cruz

Billy Crystal

Marton Csokas

Alfonso Cuaron

Ice Cube

Kieran Culkin

Macaulay Culkin

Alan Cumming

Tim Curry

Jamie Lee Curtis

Joan Cusack

John Cusack

Elisha Cuthbert

Willem Dafoe

Stephen Daldry

Matt Damon

Hugh Dancy

Claire Danes

Jeff Daniels

Frank Darabont

Embeth Davidtz

Jeremy Davies

Geena Davis

Hope Davis

Matthew Davis

Bruce Davison

Rosario Dawson

Daniel Day-Lewis

Mos Def

Ellen Degeneres

Benicio Del Toro

Guillermo Del Toro

Julie Delpy

Jonathan Demme

Patrick Dempsey

Judi Dench

Catherine Deneuve

Robert DeNiro

Gerard Depardieu

Johnny Depp

Laura Dern

Zooey Deschanel

Amanda Detmer

Danny DeVito

Cameron Diaz

Leonardo DiCaprio

Andy Dick

Vin Diesel

Taye Diggs

Matt Dillon

Snoop Dogg

Richard Donner

Vincent D’Onofrio

Stephen Dorff

Illeana Douglas

Michael Douglas

Brad Dourif

Robert Downey Jr.

Richard Dreyfuss

Minnie Driver

David Duchovny

Josh Duhamel

Faye Dunaway

Michael Clarke Duncan

Nora Dunn

Kirsten Dunst

Charles Durning

Eliza Dushku

Charles S. Dutton

Clea DuVall

Robert Duvall

Michael Ealy

Clint Eastwood

Christopher Eccleston

Aaron Eckhart

Stacy Edwards

Atom Egoyan

Chiwetel Ejiofor

Ron Eldard

Carmen Electra

Jenna Elfman

Kimberly Elise

Shannon Elizabeth

Hector Elizondo

Sandra Bullock

Sam Elliot

Chris Elliott

Cary Elwes

Ethan Embry

Noah Emmerich

Roland Emmerich

Nora Ephron

Mike Epps

Omar Epps

Jennifer Esposito

Chris Evans

Lee Evans

Rupert Everett

Peter Facinelli

Donald Faison

Edie Falco

Jimmy Fallon

Dennis Farina

Anna Faris

Vera Farmiga

Colin Farrell

Bobby Farrelly

Peter Farrelly

Jon Favreau

Angela Featherstone

Brendan Fehr

Oded Fehr

Colm Feore

Craig Ferguson

Will Ferrell

Mark Feuerstein

William Fichtner

Sally Field

Todd Field

Joseph Fiennes

Ralph Fiennes

Mike Figgis

David Fincher

Albert Finney

Colin Firth

Laurence Fishburne

Jason Flemyng

Dave Foley

Scott Foley

Bridget Fonda

Peter Fonda

Harrison Ford

Trent Ford

Claire Forlani

Milos Forman

Robert Forster

Ben Foster

Jodie Foster

Chris Columbus

Sara Foster

Vivica A. Fox

Jamie Foxx

James Frain

Jonathan Frakes

James Franco

Carl Franklin

Brendan Fraser

Stephen Frears

Morgan Freeman

William Friedkin

Patrick Fugit

Antoine Fuqua

Edward Furlong

Peter Gallagher

Michael Gambon

James Gandolfini

Romola Garai

Adam Garcia

Andy Garcia

James Garner

Jennifer Garner

Janeane Garofalo

Rebecca Gayheart

Sarah Michelle Gellar

Richard Gere

Greg Germann

Gina Gershon

Paul Giamatti

Mel Gibson

Thomas Gibson

Tyrese Gibson

Terry Gilliam

Brendan Gleeson

Scott Glenn

Crispin Glover

Danny Glover

Adam Goldberg

Bill Goldberg

Whoopi Goldberg

Jeff Goldblum

Tony Goldwyn

Cuba Gooding Jr.

John Goodman

Ginnifer Goodwin

Ryan Gosling

Raja Gosnell

Topher Grace

Heather Graham

Kelsey Grammer

Hugh Grant

Seth Green

Tom Green

Benicio Del Toro

Bruce Greenwood

Judy Greer

Pam Grier

Eddie Griffin

Melanie Griffith

Rachel Griffiths

Ioan Gruffudd

Christopher Guest

Carla Gugino

Luis Guzman

Jake Gyllenhaal

Maggie Gyllenhaal

Lukas Haas

Taylor Hackford

Gene Hackman

Philip Baker Hall

Regina Hall

Anthony Michael Hall

Lasse Hallstrom

Colin Hanks

Tom Hanks

Daryl Hannah

John Hannah

Alyson Hannigan

Curtis Hanson

Marcia Gay Harden

Tom Hardy

Renny Harlin

Woody Harrelson

Laura Elena Harring

Ed Harris

Ian Hart

Melissa Joan Hart

Josh Hartnett

Steve Harvey

Colleen Haskell

Teri Hatcher

Anne Hathaway

Shawn Hatosy

Cole Hauser

Ethan Hawke

Goldie Hawn

Salma Hayek

Lena Headey

Anne Heche

Amy Heckerling

Dan Hedaya

Katherine Heigl

Martin Henderson

Natasha Henstridge

Jay Hernandez

Barbara Hershey

Jennifer Love Hewitt

Ciaran Hinds

Dustin Hoffman

Philip Seymour Hoffman

Lauren Holly

Ian Holm

Katie Holmes

Anthony Hopkins

Dennis Hopper

Bob Hoskins

Djimon Hounsou

Ron Howard

Kelly Hu

Kate Hudson

Albert Hughes

Allen Hughes

Charlie Hunnam

Bonnie Hunt

Helen Hunt

Holly Hunter

Elizabeth Hurley

William Hurt

Anjelica Huston

Doug Hutchison

Timothy Hutton

Eric Idle

Rhys Ifans

Jeremy Irons

Amy Irving

Jason Isaacs

Eddie Izzard

Hugh Jackman

Jonathan Jackson

Joshua Jackson

Peter Jackson

Samuel L. Jackson

Thomas Jane

Allison Janney

Famke Janssen

Marianne Jean-Baptiste

Norman Jewison

Joe Johnston

Angelina Jolie

Cherry Jones

January Jones

Orlando Jones

Tamala Jones

Vinnie Jones

Tommy Lee Jones

Spike Jonze

Neil Jordan

Milla Jovovich

Ashley Judd

Mike Judge

Shekhar Kapur

Tcheky Karyo

Nicky Katt

Chris Kattan

Philip Kaufman

Diane Keaton

Michael Keaton

Andrew Keegan

Catherine Keener

Harvey Keitel

Will Kemp

Jamie Kennedy

Nicole Kidman

Val Kilmer

Jamie King

Regina King

Ben Kingsley

Greg Kinnear

Nastassja Kinski

Mia Kirshner

Chris Klein

Kevin Kline

Beyonce Knowles

Johnny Knoxville

Elias Koteas

Thomas Kretschmann

Kris Kristofferson

Diane Kruger

David Krumholtz

Lisa Kudrow

Ashton Kutcher

Neil LaBute

Martin Landau

Diane Lane

Nathan Lane

Jessica Lange

Anthony LaPaglia

Ali Larter

Sanaa Lathan

Queen Latifah

Jude Law

Martin Lawrence

Denis Leary

Matt LeBlanc

Mimi Leder

Heath Ledger

Christopher Lee

Jason Lee

Spike Lee

John Leguizamo

Jennifer Jason Leigh

Joshua Leonard

Tea Leoni

Jared Leto

Barry Levinson

Eugene Levy

Juliette Lewis

Jet Li

Matthew Lillard

Doug Liman

Delroy Lindo

Richard Linklater

Laura Linney

Ray Liotta

John Lithgow

Lucy Liu

Ron Livingston

LL Cool J

Donal Logue

Alison Lohman

Kristanna Loken

Nia Long

Jennifer Lopez

Courtney Love

Jon Lovitz

Rob Lowe

George Lucas

Josh Lucas

Derek Luke

Diego Luna

David Lynch

Melanie Lynskey

Natasha Lyonne

Eric Mabius

Bernie Mac

Norm Macdonald

Andie MacDowell

William H. Macy

John Madden

Madonna

Michael Madsen

Tobey Maguire

John Malkovich

David Mamet

James Mangold

Camryn Manheim

Gabriel Mann

Michael Mann

Taryn Manning

Julianna Margulies

Cheech Marin

James Marsden

Garry Marshall

Penny Marshall

Steve Martin

Olivier Martinez

Heather Matarazzo

Rachel McAdams

Matthew McConaughey

Catherine McCormack

Mary McCormack

Dylan McDermott

Ian McDiarmid

Frances McDormand

Natascha McElhone

Elizabeth McGovern

Rose McGowan

Ewan McGregor

Ian McKellen

Janet McTeer

John McTiernan

Eva Mendes

Sam Mendes

Debra Messing

Jason Mewes

Breckin Meyer

Bette Midler

Christina Milian

Jonny Lee Miller

Anthony Minghella

Rob Minkoff

Helen Mirren

Radha Mitchell

Jay Mohr

Gretchen Mol

Alfred Molina

Demi Moore

Julianne Moore

Cathy Moriarty-Gentile

Temuera Morrison

David Morse

Viggo Mortensen

Emily Mortimer

Joe Morton

Samantha Morton

Carrie-Anne Moss

Jonathan Mostow

Bridget Moynahan

Dermot Mulroney

Lochlyn Munro

Brittany Murphy

Cillian Murphy

Eddie Murphy

Chad Michael Murray

Bill Murray

Mike Myers

Sophia Myles

Parminder Nagra

Liam Neeson

Sam Neill

Tim Blake Nelson

Bebe Neuwirth

Mike Newell

Paul Newman

Thandie Newton

Andrew Niccol

Mike Nichols

Jack Nicholson

Connie Nielsen

Christopher Nolan

Nick Nolte

Stephen Norrington

Jeremy Northam

Edward Norton

Jack Noseworthy

Chris Noth

Phillip Noyce

Jerry O’Connell

Frances O’Connor

Chris O’Donnell

Catherine O’Hara

Gary Oldman

Lena Olin

Timothy Olyphant

Peter O’Toole

Miranda Otto

Clive Owen

Frank Oz

Al Pacino

Chazz Palminteri

Gwyneth Paltrow

Joe Pantoliano

Anna Paquin

Kip Pardue

Nick Park

Sarah Jessica Parker

Alan Parker

Molly Parker

Jason Patric

Robert Patrick

Will Patton

Bill Paxton

David Paymer

Alexander Payne

Guy Pearce

Amanda Peet

Kimberly Peirce

Sean Penn

Robin Wright Penn

Barry Pepper

Piper Perabo

Vincent Perez

Ron Perlman

Matthew Perry

Wolfgang Petersen

Michelle Pfeiffer

Mekhi Phifer

Ryan Phillippe

Lou Diamond Phillips

Bijou Phillips

Todd Phillips

Joaquin Phoenix

David Hyde Pierce

Brad Pitt

Michael Pitt

Jeremy Piven

Oliver Platt

Joan Plowright

Christopher Plummer

Roman Polanski

Kevin Pollak

Sarah Polley

Teri Polo

Carly Pope

Natalie Portman

Parker Posey

Pete Postlethwaite

Franka Potente

Monica Potter

Jaime Pressly

Kelly Preston

Freddie Prinze Jr.

Alex Proyas

Jonathan Pryce

Bill Pullman

James Purefoy

Dennis Quaid

Randy Quaid

DJ Qualls

Aidan Quinn

Sam Raimi

Harold Ramis

Michael Rapaport

Brett Ratner

Usher Raymond

Stephen Rea

Robert Redford

Vanessa Redgrave

Norman Reedus

Keanu Reeves

Tara Reid

John C. Reilly

Rob Reiner

Paul Reiser

Ivan Reitman

Brad Renfro

Jean Reno

Paul Reubens

Burt Reynolds

Ryan Reynolds

Ving Rhames

Jonathan Rhys-Meyers

Giovanni Ribisi

Christina Ricci

Denise Richards

Miranda Richardson

Natasha Richardson

Alan Rickman

Guy Ritchie

Jay Roach

Brian Robbins

Tim Robbins

Julia Roberts

Chris Rock

The Rock

Sam Rockwell

Michelle Rodriguez

Robert Rodriguez

Ray Romano

Rebecca Romijn-Stamos

Michael Rooker

Michael Rosenbaum

Gary Ross

Tim Roth

Mickey Rourke

Richard Roxburgh

Paul Rudd

Mark Ruffalo

Geoffrey Rush

Keri Russell

Kurt Russell

Rene Russo

Meg Ryan

Winona Ryder

Ludivine Sagnier

Roselyn Sanchez

Adam Sandler

Susan Sarandon

Peter Sarsgaard

Devon Sawa

John Sayles

Rob Schneider

Live Schreiber

Matt Schulze

Joel Schumacher

Jason Schwartzman

Arnold Schwarzenegger

David Schwimmer

Annabella Sciorra

Martin Scorsese

Dougray Scott

Ridley Scott

Tony Scott

Seann William Scott

Steven Seagal

Rade Serbedzija

Andy Serkis

Chloe Sevigny

Rufus Sewell

Brendan Sexton III

Tom Shadyac

Tony Shalhoub

Garry Shandling

Molly Shannon

William Shatner

Martin Sheen

Michael Sheen

Marley Shelton

Sam Shepard

Dave Sheridan

Martin Short

Elisabeth Shue

M. Night Shyamalan

Brad Silberling

Alicia Silverstone

Bryan Singer

John Singleton

Gary Sinise

Jeremy Sisto

Tom Sizemore

Stellan Skarsgard

Tom Skerritt

Christian Slater

Amy Smart

Jada Pinkett Smith

Kerr Smith

Kevin Smith

Maggie Smith

Will Smith

Jimmy Smits

Wesley Snipes

Leelee Sobieski

Steven Soderbergh

Marla Sokoloff

Todd Solondz

Ian Somerhalder

Stephen Sommers

Mira Sorvino

Paul Sorvino

Shannyn Sossamon

Sissy Spacek

Kevin Spacey

David Spade

James Spader

Scott Speedman

Steven Spielberg

Brent Spiner

Nick Stahl

Sylvester Stallone

Terence Stamp

Aaron Stanford

Jason Statham

Leslie Stefanson

Toby Stephens

Jon Stewart

Patrick Stewart

Julia Stiles

Ben Stiller

Eric Stoltz

Oliver Stone

Sharon Stone

Peter Stormare

Madeleine Stowe

David Strathairn

Meryl Streep

Donald Sutherland

Kiefer Sutherland

Mena Suvari

Dominique Swain

Hilary Swank

Kristy Swanson

Patrick Swayze

DB Sweeney

Tilda Swinton

Lee Tamahori

Quentin Tarantino

Audrey Tautou

Lili Taylor

Noah Taylor

Charlize Theron

Justin Theroux

David Thewlis

Sean Patrick Thomas

Kristin Scott Thomas

Betty Thomas

Henry Thomas

Emma Thompson

Uma Thurman

Maura Tierney

Jennifer Tilly

Marisa Tomei

Rip Torn

Stuart Townsend

John Travolta

Danny Trejo

Jeanne Tripplehorn

Stanley Tucci

Chris Tucker

Jonathan Tucker

Robin Tunney

John Turturro

David Twohy

Tom Tykwer

Liv Tyler

Skeet Ulrich

Deborah Kara Unger

Gabrielle Union

Karl Urban

James Van Der Beek

Gus Van Sant

Nia Vardalos

Leonor Varela

Michael Vartan

Vince Vaughn

Diane Venora

Gore Verbinski

Paul Verhoeven

Goran Visnjic

Mike Vogel

Jon Voight

Max Von Sydow

Natasha Gregson Wagner

Robert Wagner

Mark Wahlberg

Christopher Walken

Paul Walker

Julie Walters

Wayne Wang

Patrick Warburton

Susan Ward

Estella Warren

Denzel Washington

Isaiah Washington

Kerry Washington

John Waters

Barry Watson

Emily Watson

Naomi Watts

Keenen Ivory Wayans

Damon Wayans

Marlon Wayans

Sigourney Weaver

Hugo Weaving

Peter Weir

Rachel Weisz

Chris Weitz

Paul Weitz

Tom Welling

David Wenham

Dominic West

Shane West

Simon West

Forest Whitaker

Mike White

Dianne Wiest

Tom Wilkinson

Vanessa L. Williams

Michelle Williams

Olivia Williams

Robin Williams

Bruce Willis

Lambert Wilson

Luke Wilson

Owen Wilson

Patrick Wilson

Rita Wilson

Bridgette Wilson-Sampras

Kate Winslet

Ray Winstone

Reese Witherspoon

Alicia Witt

John Woo

Elijah Wood

Alfre Woodard

James Woods

Jeffrey Wright

Noah Wyle

Donnie Yen

Michelle Yeoh

Sean Young

Rick Yune

Chow Yun-Fat

Steve Zahn

Renee Zellweger

Robert Zemeckis

Catherine Zeta-Jones

Zhang Ziyi

David Zucker

Edward Zwick

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Kendall, T.D. An empirical analysis of political activity in Hollywood. J Cult Econ 33, 19–47 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10824-008-9086-7

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