Jennifer Lawrence, Chelsea Handler, Joshua Jackson, Adam McKay, Eva Longoria and more stars gathered on Monday night to issue a last-minute plea for voters — hampered occasionally by tech issues — to turn out at the polls on Tuesday.
Those stars and others joined the second Telethon for America, hosted by Rosario Dawson and Ben Gleib and featuring live comedy as well as video banking and voter information. Organized by anticorruption nonprofit Represent.Us, the program aired TelethonForAmerica.com, Free Speech TV and Represent.Us’ and participating stars’ social media platforms.
Kenan Thompson, Jay Ellis, Debra Messing, Busy Philipps and Alyssa Milano also took part in the event, which invited some viewers who pledged to vote on Nov. 3rd to join the show and speak with some of their favorite participants.
The event kicked off with some introductions of its “celebrity video bank” participants, including Messing (wearing a Biden shirt), Monica Lewinsky, Milano, Sophia Bush (who brought marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson with her), Josh Gad, Ricki Lake and others. “This is the most chaotic Zoom I’ve been on since Yom Kippur with my family,” Gad said as participants initially talked over one another, words that were prescient, given the technical issues that ensued.
The first pre-taped segment featured Handler, but it was nearly impossible to hear her because the celebrity video bank Zoom audio continued to play over the pre-taped segment. The audio issue continued as Kenan Thompson appeared in the next pre-taped segment saying, “This is a very, very, very critical time in our country. I think everybody knows by now that their vote is critical and it’s your right as an American citizen and so I think you should take that right and vote,” he said.
Jennifer Lawrence appeared in a strongly worded segment expressing Represent.Us’ policies: “If you’re anything like me, you may find yourself constantly overwhelmed by everything that’s wrong with American politics,” Lawrence said in the video. “I know it’s hard to talk about politics these days, but look, the government is ours; it needs to work for us.” To fix the “total political system failure in America,” Lawrence suggested Represent.Us policies including ending gerrymandering and implementing ranked-choice voting and automatic voter registration, among other solutions.
(Excerpt) Read more in: The Hollywood Reporter