Breaking Bad? More like Breaking News.
On Sunday night, Bryan Cranston won the Tony award for Best Leading Actor in a Play for his performance in “Network,” a play about a dogged journalist and his struggling news broadcast program who ultimately gets assassinated.
“Howard Beale is a fictitious TV newsman who found his way in the line of fire because of his pursuit of the truth,” Cranston said during his acceptance speech. “And I would like to dedicate this to all the real journalists around the world both in the press and the print media and also broadcast media who actually are in the line of fire with their pursuit of the truth.”
The actor then took a veiled shot at President Donald Trump, who frequently attacks reporters as “enemies of the people.”
“The media is not the enemy of the people,” Cranston declared. “Demagoguery is the enemy of the people.”
Afterward, Cranston explained to journalists backstage why he made those comments.
“It’s absurd to think that the media is the enemy of the people,” Cranston said, according to USA Today. “If that message keeps getting propagated over and over and over again, sometimes it starts to seep in. And the perception of the truth is often more important than the truth, because if people believe it, it doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not.”
“So the opposite message has to continue to be put out there, whether it’s diversity or the fight against the media or women’s reproductive rights or voting rights,” he added.
Watch Cranston’s acceptance speech below:
