Susan Sarandon, star of Dead Man Walking and, uh, Wall Street , has made an appearance at the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protests in New York.
The Oscar-winning actress, also renowned as a keen activist for progressive and left-leaning causes, joined the 11-day-old protest against corporate greed. She left for a flight to Italy in the afternoon, but promised to return next week.
While at the protest site, MSNBC grabbed Sarandon for a chat, in which she admitted she had come along to get schooled:
“I came down here to educate myself. It’s been really informative and I’ll be back [following a trip to Italy]. There’s a huge void between the rich and the poor in this country.”
The actress also talked about the slightly fuzzy aims of the protest, emphasizing the need for clear goals:
“Just to be against Wall Street, there’s too much going on. If you can figure out something that has a positive end to it, that’s a constructive criticism. Maybe finance reform. Something that can actually be followed through. […] We have to start making human decisions and put people at the top of the line.”
While she avoided blaming Wall Street for all of the world’s economic woes (“Greed is widespread all over the world”), Sarandon added she knows nobody who doesn’t think Wall Street deserves to be protested against.
Protestors at Zuccotti Park are promising to continue their disruption of daily Wall Street life, even after police yesterday maced apparently peaceful protestors and made 80 arrests.