{"id":1994954,"date":"2025-09-03T16:38:26","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T16:38:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=1994954"},"modified":"2025-09-03T16:38:26","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T16:38:26","slug":"julian-schnabel-on-gal-gadot-gerard-butler-boycott-calls-at-venice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/julian-schnabel-on-gal-gadot-gerard-butler-boycott-calls-at-venice\/","title":{"rendered":"Julian Schnabel on Gal Gadot, Gerard Butler Boycott Calls at Venice"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tJulian Schnabel<\/a> has responded to calls from Gaza activists for Gal Gadot and Gerard Butler, two of the stars of his new film \u201cIn the Hand of Dante<\/a>,\u201d to be disinvited from Venice Film Festival<\/a> over their support for Israel.<\/p>\n

\n\tJust as the Venice Film Festival started, organizers were urged in an open letter signed by hundreds of international filmmakers and artists to take a \u201cclear and unambiguous stand [in] condemning\u201d the ongoing war in Gaza. Some even called to disinvite celebrities who have shown public support for Israel, including Gadot and Butler. Though Venice chief Alberto Barbera confirmed that they were not disinvited, neither actor is present at the fest.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think there\u2019s no reason to boycott artists,\u201d Schnabel responded when asked about the matter during \u201cIn the Hand of Dante\u2019s\u201d press conference on Wednesday. \u201cI selected those actors for their merits as actors, and they did an extraordinary job in the film and that\u2019s about it. I think we should talk about the movie, rather than this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn the Hand of Dante\u201d is based on the eponymous book by Nick Tosches, which revolves around a handwritten manuscript of Dante Alighieri\u2019s poem \u201cThe Divine Comedy.\u201d After being found in the Vatican library, rhe ancient text makes its way from a priest to a mob boss in New York City, where it is taken by Tosches after he\u2019s asked to verify its authenticity. Then, like Dante, Tosches embarks on his own journey.<\/p>\n

\n\tOscar Isaac<\/a>, who plays both Tosches and Dante and was also on the Lido last week for the \u201cFrankenstein\u201d premiere, was on hand at the press conference and discussed what attracted him to the project. \u201cI think the impossibility of it. I think that\u2019s why we get into these kinds of things, you know. The impossible dream,\u201d Isaac said. \u201cSomething about moving toward the more mysterious \u2014 to read it and have no idea how one would realize it, I think that\u2019s what\u2019s so exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring the shooting of the film in locations including Sicily, Venice, Verona, Rome and New York, Isaac said: \u201cI would come home and every night and there was something Talmudic about how I would have Nick Tosches\u2019 book, his poetry, and the \u2018Divine Comedy\u2019 in three english translations, and in the original Italian.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe added, \u201cDepending on what I was shooting the next day, I would derive and divine from these texts to see what would be possible the next day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSchnabel also underlined the huge challenge of the project. The film stemmed from Johnny Depp giving him five books when they made \u201cBefore Night Falls\u201d together \u201cand I picked the most impossible one,\u201d he noted. Eventually, Depp was no longer involved and Isaac read the script and said: \u201cIf you\u2019re going to do this, I\u2019m your man.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe \u201cIn the Hand of Dante\u201d cast also includes Jason Momoa, John Malkovich, Louis Cancelmi, Sabrina Impacciatore and Franco Nero. Schnabel was also able to cast Martin Scorsese\u00a0in a small but powerful role as an elderly sage named Isaiah, who influences Dante Alighieri while he is writing \u201cThe Divine Comedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMarty has been extremely supportive of my work as a filmmaker,\u201d said Schnabel. \u201cHe really wanted to do this and I thought there wasn\u2019t really anyone else that I wanted to play that part.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHand of Dante\u201d also feature a slew of Italian actors beyond Impacciatore and Nero, including Claudio Santamaria, Guido Caprino, Paolo Bonacelli and Dora Romano, who played the matriarch who eats mozzarella with her hands and spouts vulgarities in Paolo Sorrentino\u2019s \u201cThe Hand of God.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn the Hand of Dante\u201d will premiere at Venice on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source variety.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Julian Schnabel has responded to calls from Gaza activists for Gal Gadot and Gerard Butler, two of the stars of his new film \u201cIn the Hand of Dante,\u201d to be disinvited from Venice Film Festival over their support for Israel. Just as the Venice Film Festival started, organizers were urged in an open letter signed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1994955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[361350,361351,348741,333428],"class_list":["post-1994954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-in-the-hand-of-dante","tag-julian-schnabel","tag-oscar-isaac","tag-venice-film-festival"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Julian-Schnabel-on-Gal-Gadot-Gerard-Butler-Boycott-Calls-at.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1994954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1994954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1994954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1994955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1994954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1994954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1994954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}