Spike Lee doesn’t think his Oscar-nominated Malcolm X biopic would have been possible to make in Donald Trump’s America. In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporterto promote his fifth collaboration with Malcolm X star Denzel Washington, Highest 2 Lowest, Lee reflected on the 1992 film’s success and whether he thinks it could be replicated right now. “I don’t like to get into what-ifs,” Lee said before pointing out that “a lot of these people” who own movie studios were at Trump’s inauguration. “I’m not naming names, but it is not an exaggeration to say that [Malcolm X] cannot be made today with where we are in this world,” he added. Among the new Hollywood leaders sitting behind Trump that day included Apple CEO Tim Cook and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. Asked what resisting Trump should look like, Lee said the answer is “different” for each person, but the stain on America is there either way. “Everybody’s not going to give you the same answer. It is personal and everybody’s different,” he responded. “I read the papers and even the people who voted for him are like, ‘WTF.’ When I travel all over the world, people I don’t even know will come up to me in an airport and say, ‘Spike, what’s happened to the United States, the so-called leader of the free world?’ They’re like, ‘How did this happen?’”
