Actor Martin Sheen discusses a lifetime of activism in this touching and fun talk from We Day 2010.
For those of you unfamiliar, We Day is an annual “youth empowerment” event organized by the Free the Children charity. Held in cities across Canada and the United States, We Day motivates youth to take action on local and global issues. Since 2007, thousands of Canadian students have attended We Day events, which feature speeches and performances from global leaders, social activists and public figures. Each student group that attends is asked to make a commitment of one local and one global action throughout the year in order to help create positive change in the world. SOURCE
We Day writes of Sheen on their website: “As a good friend of Free The Children, Martin regularly appears on the We Day stage. With his words, commitment and enthusiasm, he continues to inspire young people to end apathy once and for all.”
Martin Sheen is truly a living Hollywood legend. The star of countless films, he is synonymous with epic cinematic events that have captured subjects from Mahatma Gandhi to the Vietnam War on the big screen. And on the small screen he remains, arguably, America’s most revered and beloved fictional president.
Yet despite his accomplishments as an artist, acting is not where his true passions lie. In fact his “real” work typically takes him quite far from the bright lights of Tinseltown. As a pacifist, humanitarian and tireless activist for peace and social justice, Martin can boast a rap sheet nearly as long as his list of acting credits, having been arrested more than 60 times for public protests and acts of civil disobedience.
Sheen began his 2010 speech, entitled “Find Something Worth Fighting For,” stating: ““I’ve been an actor all of my life. In fact I have no conscious memory of ever not being an actor, but while acting is what I do for a living, activism is what I do to stay alive.“
And I am often asked how I manage to unite the two and the answer is quite simple; I don’t have a clue because it was far less a conscious effort than it was a natural progression. Of course if you grew up in a poor large immigrant family chances are you’re either Irish catholic or Hispanic and I was lucky enough to be both, so I had a head start when it came to social justice activism.
You can watch his inspiring speech, below, and you can go here to read a full transcript of the speech.
http://youtu.be/BzgVdX7FtS8
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