Javier Bardem has responded to the backlash against last year’s Film Workers For Palestine pledge to boycott Israeli film companies “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people”.
The pledge, launched last fall, attracted thousands of signatories from A-list actors and filmmakers, including Bardem, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Mark Ruffalo, Emma Stone, and Yorgos Lanthimos.
The move was later condemned by Warner Bros, Paramount, and Hollywood figures including Liev Schreiber, Mayim Bialik, and Greg Berlanti.
Oscar winner Bardem is an executive producer on Palestinian-American filmmaker Cherien Dabis’s latest film, "All That’s Left of You," and this week appeared alongside the director for an interview on Mehdi Hasan’s Zeteo News.
Hasan asked Bardem whether he feared the Hollywood backlash against the pledge, bringing up a report about a supposed Paramount ‘blacklist’ of actors whose views the studio found offensive.
A source at Paramount told Deadline this week that such a list doesn’t exist.
“I’m not surprised about it, but the thing is, it’s not so much about their blacklist,” Bardem said. “It’s about who we choose to work with. And that’s something that will start unfolding in the next years to come.”
He added about the boycott: “And one thing that we make sure everyone understands is that we are not going against people for their nationalities or their religious or ethnic origins. We’re going for companies and entities that are supporting this genocide and ongoing apartheid and illegal occupation.”
The pledge commits signatories not to screen films, appear at or otherwise work with what it considers complicit institutions – including festivals, cinemas, broadcasters and production companies.
Examples of complicity include “whitewashing or justifying genocide and apartheid, and/or partnering with the government committing them”.
Spanish actor Bardem has been a consistent and outspoken critic of Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
During a press conference at San Sebastian in 2024, the veteran actor said he believed Israel had committed “crimes against humanity.”
“What is happening in Gaza is totally unacceptable, it is terrible, it is dehumanizing,” he said at the time. “I believe that this Israeli government is the most radical government that Israel has ever had.”
Bardem added: “The impunity that the current Israeli government enjoys in its actions in Gaza and the West Bank has to change. I think that countries like the United States, Germany, and England, in particular, have to rethink their unconditional support when we see crimes. Prohibiting the entry of food, water, medicine, and electricity, as UNICEF says, is a war against children, and continues this trauma for generations.”
Bardem joined "All That’s Left of You" as an exec producer in September 2025 alongside Mark Ruffalo.
Opening in the Occupied West Bank of the 1980s, the drama follows a Palestinian teenager who is swept into a protest that changes the course of his family’s life.
The film is Jordan’s entry for the Best International Oscar category, and it made the shortlist late last year.
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