Is it safe to be conservative in Hollywood?

The news that the actress Gina Carano has secured a climbdown and undisclosed (but undoubtedly) generous settlement from Disney over her dismissal from The Mandalorian television series in 2021 is sure to have far-reaching consequences that stretch far beyond La La Land. Carano posted a triumphant statement on X, saying, “I hope this brings some healing to the force,” thanked Elon Musk for bankrolling her case and concluded by saying “Yes, I’m smiling.” Disney, meanwhile, released their own, terse assessment in which they announced, “We look forward to identifying opportunities to work together with Ms. Carano in the near future.”

It was a win for Carano on every level. She was humiliatingly dismissed from The Mandalorian after comparing her status as a Hollywood conservative to being a Jew during the Holocaust. While this might have had some hyperbole to it, the actress rightly pointed out that her co-star Pedro Pascal – an actor firmly to the Hollywood Left – made similarly emotive statements on social media, using the Holocaust comparison, and went undisciplined by the higher-ups at Disney. The question now is what the settlement means not just for Carano, but for conservatives in the industry more generally.

It used to be that gay actors were advised to keep their sexuality to themselves, for fear of alienating their potential audience, but this has been soundly disproved thanks to the mainstream success of everyone from Jonathan Bailey and Luke Evans to Kate McKinnon and Ncuti Gatwa. However, Hollywood conservatives are still a rare breed. There are many leading actors, from Mel Gibson to Dennis Quaid, who have been vocal in their support of Donald Trump, but comparatively few younger A-listers who have dared to voice right-wing or Republican sympathies in public. The revelation that Sydney Sweeney was a registered Republican, and the subsequent anger – coupled with the storm-in-a-teacup American Eagle–jeans advert that she starred in – that this engendered in liberal circles would make you believe that she was a fully paid-up fascist, rather than simply a supporter of the current governing party in the United States.

Still, Hollywood has always been a left-leaning industry, and while its most vocal practitioners may find that their invective damages their careers irreparably (step forward John Cusack, whose transformation from ’90s indie darling to furious keyboard warrior is now complete), the likes of Pascal and Mark Ruffalo can offer their unvarnished opinions without pushback from the executives who hire them. Still, a more intriguing subsection of the industry are those who are, in the words of Jon Voight’s clandestine dining society, “Friends of Abe”: actors or filmmakers who have right-wing or conservative views that they are unwilling to share in public for fear of jeopardizing their career. It is a long, long list – any reader of this could probably name a dozen leading figures who are likely to vote Republican, even if not all of them remain full MAGA supporters – but it has been, up until now, a kind of McCarthyite club in reverse. Nobody wants to lose a successful career because they have voted the wrong way.

It therefore will be fascinating to see whether Carano’s victory leads to a permanent sea change in the industry, or whether it’s just a blip before business-as-usual resumes. Certainly, the success of faith-based films, often starring openly conservative actors such as Kelsey Grammer, indicates that there is a market for films that the American Right, in particular, will lap up, and the news that Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ sequel, currently titled Resurrection, has begun filming for release in 2027 will be catnip for its considerable fanbase. Yet these might be isolated examples rather than a new trend. What will change the industry forever is when there are as many Sydney Sweeneys as Scarlett Johanssons, whose political views are regarded as unexceptional, and then – and only then – being a Hollywood conservative will no longer seem like an oxymoron, or worse.