Big Actors Don’t Do Politics. This Dynamic Duo Explains Why

Explaining why the duo rarely speaks out on politics, Hollywood power couple Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell said they prefer to exist as characters in the entertainment world.

Russell and Hawn are staring together for the first time since the 1987 comedy “Overboard” in a Netflix sequel to “The Christmas Chronicles,” with Hawn filling the role of Mrs. Claus to Russell’s Kris Kringle.

Hawn, who rose to stardom in the 1960s TV sketch comedy "Laugh-In," said the duo tends to avoid weighing in on the issues of the day in order to cater to their celebrity personas.

“The one thing I don’t agree with is that just because we have a platform we always have to use it,” she told The New York Times in an expose published Wednesday. “That is our choice.”

Brushing with gender roles in an era that saw Dustin Hoffman cross-dress for his role in the comedy “Tootsie,” Hawn earned an Academy Award nomination for playing an eventual elite paratrooper in “Private Benjamin,” one of the biggest box office hits of the 1980s.

Her Hawn Foundation, which she started in 2003, is a non-profit targeting academic performance in youth education. But on politics, Hawn, who celebrates her 75^th birthday on Saturday, said it’s a “personal choice” about weighing in on current events.

Russell, 69, was more emphatic about the mix between entertainment and current events.

“I’ve always been someone who felt we are court jesters,” he said.

Russell has largely stuck with comedy and action roles. He gained cult-like status for his lead role in the 1981 sci-fi film “Escape From New York,” which sees Manhattan turned into a prison in a film that director John Carpenter wrote as an off-hand criticism of President Richard Nixon after the Watergate scandal.

Later, he played Jimmy Harrel, an offshore manager for Transocean during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, in the movie “Deepwater Horizon.”

Unlike Hawn, his partner for 37 years, Russell has no apparent philanthropic organization. Known as a staunch supporter of gun rights, Russell, a Libertarian, told The Daily Beast in 2017 he’s entitled to his opinions, but largely keeps them to himself.

“There’s no reason entertainers can’t learn just as much as anybody else about a subject, whatever it is,” he said. “But I think that what’s sad about it is that they lose their status as a court jester. And I’m a court jester. That’s what I was born to do.”