Richard Dreyfuss Gave Up Acting Because America Needed Saving: ‘People Don’t Understand What This Place Means’

Oscar-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss He said that he had given up his job. “blessed life” Radio personality telling his story because his country needed saving Glenn Beck He was furious at the sheer number of Americans who were oblivious to his plight. “don’t understand what this place means.”

Dreyfuss joined Beck in an interview to discuss his book — “One Thought Scares Me… We Teach Our Children What We Wish Them to Know; We Don’t Teach Our Children What We Don’t Wish Them to Know” — and the state of his country, which he believed was dire.

WATCH:

.@RichardDreyfuss He tells me that he has given up acting “ONLY for something I loved as much, which was saving my country…It infuriates me that people don’t understand what this place means.” pic.twitter.com/Zxshkqa0aJ

— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) January 16, 2023

“I gave up something I loved, and had loved since I was nine years old,” The “Mr. Holland’s Opus” star began. “Only for something else I loved as much, which was saving my country.”

“And I firmly believe that if we don’t revive the study of civics, we will be dead before 2050,” Dreyfuss continued. “We’ll have the same name —”

“Long before,” Beck agreed.

“— and it will be a nightmare,” Dreyfuss ended.

“So I had led a blessed life,” Dreyfuss said — and by all accounts, he did. He was just 29 years old when he won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as a struggling actor, in the 1977 film. “The Goodbye Girl.” He received another Best Actor nod for 1996’s “Mr. Holland’s Opus,” but lost to Nicolas Cage — who earned the nomination for his role in “Leaving Las Vegas.”

“And I gave it up for a blessed life,” The actor spoke out about his transition to activism, saying that although his book didn’t cover everything, it gave him a good idea of where he was at the time.

“It infuriates me that people don’t understand what this place means,” Dreyfuss continued, his voice breaking. “What an advance on human progress this country is all about, and how quickly we can abandon it without — without a second thought.”

Dreyfuss went on to explain that one of the many things that concerned him was the attitude so many people had toward opposing views – namely that any opposing view was an attack and even more than that, was unAmerican.

“They don’t know that opposing views are entwined and threaded through the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and what we show to the world we believe in,” Dreyfuss said. “You know, there’s a very simple thing, and it’s – these documents tell the world who we are and why we are. And we say because they are works in progress, they tell us who we want to be when we grow up.”

WATCH the complete interview

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