June
11 Beatty on '08

Corrected version.

One Hollywood figure we haven't heard much from in this whopper of a political year is Warren Beatty.

Beatty, who receives the AFI Life Achievement Award on Thursday, talks about celebrity endorsements, this year's presidential race and Arnold Schwarzenegger in a story I wrote with Steve Chagollan for Variety.

Interviewed before Hillary Clinton dropped out of the race, Beatty said of the field:  "I have respect for all three," he says, "and I'm probably a little further to the left than any of them would be willing to say.

"Through the years, I have been fairly consistent in what I feel about where things need to go. These people have been making their cases, and I don't think endorsements by famous people mean an awful lot. If a famous person can bring something to the clarification of an issue, (then) that can be valuable -- if they do it clearly. That's pretty much how I spend my political capital: saying what I feel on a particular issue, if asked."

Beatty is still active in politics --- and many Democratic candidates make a point of paying him a visit or at least calling him up at the start of their campaigns. He is good friends with John McCain, and says that he got to know him back when Gary Hart was running for president in 1984. Beatty declines to endorse a candidate, but when asked that question makes a point of saying that he is, as he always has been, a liberal Democrat.