Claim to Fame: legendary actor and director
Why He's the Person of the Week: for defying liberal Hollywood's pro-abortion boycott to film in Georgia.
Eastwood will begin filming The Ballad of Richard Jewell in Atlanta this summer, local ABC affiliate WJCL reports. The film is to be based upon the security guard who discovered a bomb at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Jewell was first acclaimed as a hero before then being named as a suspect by the media and then later exonerated.
Eastwood is moving forward with filming amid significant Hollywood pressure for the state to abandon the pro-life law.
Georgia’s Republican governor Brian Kemp signed House Bill 481 into law May 7, banning most abortions once a baby’s heartbeat can be detected, usually around six weeks. It allows exceptions for rape, incest, physical medical emergencies, and pregnancies deemed “medically futile” and is set to take effect in January 2020.
In response, numerous film studios and celebrities have threatened to boycott Georgia, holding up the risk of harm to the economy should Hollywood cease filming there as a consequence.
Actress Alyssa Milano is at the protest’s forefront, sending a letter along with some 50 other performers to Kemp and Georgia House speaker Brian Ralston in March threatening to do all they could to move the film and television industry to another state should H.B. 481 be enacted. The celebrities gave the rationale in the letter that states with greater access to abortion are “safer” for women.
