Comedian and “The Daily Show” co-creator Lizz Winstead said Monday that Jared Leto missed an opportunity during his Oscar acceptance speech by talking about the Ukraine crisis instead of “the trans community.”
Mr. Leto on Sunday won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for the role he played as a transgender woman in “Dallas Buyers Club.”
“The movie that he just won the Oscar for, if you talk about an invisible community that needs an advocate, the trans community is there. And I wish that he would have taken that time… Not that the Ukraine isn’t awful,” Miss Winstead told MSNBC’s Ronan Farrow.
“But to know, and to have researched a character like that, to be able to say, ’Oh my God, people, wake up, because we have this amazing group of transpeople who need our support, who need our awareness, who need our advocacy. I’m glad that I could be in a movie that could push that forward,’” she continued.
“That, to me, would have been a really awesome moment instead of, ’I know Ukraine is happening,’” she said. “I didn’t believe all of those people there were, like, desperately thinking about the Ukraine while at the Oscars.”
Russian president Vladimir Putin’s request to use military force in Crimea and throughout Ukraine was approved on Saturday. Russian troops have surrounded Ukrainian bases and moved armored vehicles into Crimea.
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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