Liev Schreiber

MH: An award winning actor takes on a new role… helping Ukraine. This week, on Firing Line.

 

Schreiber as Kissinger: Madame Prime Minister, I am first an American, second secretary of state, and third I am a Jew. 

Golda: You forget that in Israel we read from right to left…. 

 

He plays Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the new movie “Golda”

 

Kissinger: Of course…

 

Actor Liev Schreiber’s career includes portraying the Marvel character Sabretooth in Wolverine. He’s been a director, starred in productions of Shakespeare…

 

Schreiber as Ray Donovan: You go near my family, I’ll freaking kill you. You hear me? 

 

…and spent seven years as the lead on the Showtime series “Ray Donovan”. Schreiber, who is of Ukrainian descent, now has a role on the world stage. Shortly after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine…

 

Schreiber: It’s great to meet you Mr. President. 

 

…he founded BlueCheck Ukraine, an organization dedicated to supporting humanitarian efforts on the front lines….

 

SCHREIBER: It’s an existential situation.

 

as some in the U.S. oppose increased support for Ukraine…

 

…what does actor Liev Schreiber say now?

 

‘Firing Line’ with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by: Stephens Inc., Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, The Tepper Foundation, Peter and Mary Kalikow, The Asness Family Foundation, The Beth and Ravenel Curry Foundation, The McKenna Family Foundation, Charles R. Schwab and by Pritzker Military Foundation on behalf of the Pritzker Military Museum and Library, The Rosalind P. Walter Foundation, Damon Button, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, Roger and Susan Hertog, Cheryl Cohen Effron and Blair Effron, Al and Kathy Hubbard, Corporate funding is brought to you by: Stephens Inc., and by Pfizer Inc.

 

INTERVIEW

 

HOOVER: Liev Schreiber, welcome to Firing Line. 

SCHREIBER: Thank you for having me. 

HOOVER: Your maternal grandfather emigrated to the United States from Ukraine. I understand that he rarely spoke of his upbringing, but that you embarked on a search for his village in Ukraine after he died. Did that search influence your work and your sense of identity? 

SCHREIBER: My work is– that’s my work. My work is this, like, constant search for my own identity and trying things on. But pretty much everything I’ve ever done or written has had something to do with my grandfather in one way or another. 

HOOVER: Most people know you for your roles on television, also in the movies. But I want to stick in this discussion to what you’ve done with Ukraine. You founded BlueCheck Ukraine one month after the invasion of Ukraine. And I’m curious how you decided to create an organization that would vet and identify organizations already existing on the ground to then channel funds from the United States to directly. How did you figure that is the model, this is the way that you could have impact? 

SCHREIBER: Well, the fair answer to that question is there are people who are a lot smarter than me who are helping me get there. Humanitarian Outcomes, which is a watchdog organization for humanitarian aid published a couple of reports, one last June, where they said that of the $2.6 billion dollars, this is last June, that had been sent to Ukraine, only 6 million of that 2.6 had actually gone to the NGO, the frontline NGOs in Ukraine who are doing the work. Because it’s such an acute situation and we have to respond quickly, the importance of working with people on the ground in Ukraine, in other words, localizing aid, finding– because it’s the people in the country that are doing the work… 

HOOVER: Right. 

SCHREIBER: …finding ways to get them directly the money that they need, the support that they need to do their work was the solution that we came up with. And that’s why we went into Ukraine and came out of that with our first seven or eight partners. 

HOOVER: Your BlueCheck focuses on medical assistance, mental health organizations that are providing support for children, providing food, providing shelter. You’ve called the needs fluid because they’ve changed from the beginning of the war to now. 

SCHREIBER: Yeah. 

HOOVER: What are you seeing are the most pressing needs now, and how has that changed from the beginning? 

SCHREIBER: It changes a lot. You know, for instance, a great example is the Kakhovka  dam. When the Russians exploded the Kakhovka dam it created a huge crisis. And there’s a bunch of different components for that. Obviously, there’s a need for sheltering and evacuations. But a big thing that the people weren’t really immediately aware of, and thankfully one of our partners was, is water. 

HOOVER: They need fresh, potable water. They need to be able to drink water

SCHREIBER: So one of our partners, Project Victory, these guys went in right away with trucks full of water and are now installing water filtration systems. So once you kind of stick your finger in the dam, as it were, then you have time to kind of look at the bigger sort of civil sector issues, like, you know, children and education. Children are going through a lot of trauma. Getting training to their teachers, to their parents, to them, on how to help them understand this is a huge component of this. Another thing that every time you watch the news and you see another town sort of destroyed by missiles, inevitably it’s an elderly woman walking in front of the camera bleeding. So we have an organization called Starenki who works specifically to help elderly people, people. Because it’s the elderly people that are staying in these frontline villages who are saying, what else is there to my life? This is all I have right now. Let them come. You know, they have these defined attitudes towards the Russians. And sure enough, more often than not, they don’t survive these attacks. So for us, it became pretty clear that we needed to come up with a diverse enough portfolio of partners so that we could be able to react to any situation. And we’re feeling like we’re now 22 and we’re pretty confident about their ability to touch pretty much everything. 

HOOVER: How do you track the utilization of funds that go to these organizations that you’ve vetted? 

SCHREIBER: Well, first of all, we wouldn’t exist without our incredible partners who do all the verifying and vetting for us. Obviously, because of the perception and the climate of corruption that people talk about in regards to Ukraine, it’s extremely important that we really are very, very careful about how we spend the money and how we account for it. 

HOOVER: You mentioned corruption. How big of a problem is corruption in Ukraine from your observations? 

SCHREIBER: From my observation, I think it’s probably a bigger problem in perception than it is in reality. But I don’t want to understate it. And I think this administration in particular, President Zelensky, has been pretty open to criticism on this point and has kind of made it known that if anybody has any information or sources that suggest that there’s anything happening corrupt, he’s prepared to act on it and wants that information, is being fairly open about it, from what I’ve seen. 

HOOVER: I mean, in 2022, Transparency International ranked Ukraine is the second most corrupt country in Europe after Russia, and Zelensky has fired more than a dozen senior officials due to allegations of graft and impropriety. So what do you say to critics who have legitimate concerns about corruption in Ukraine and the country’s ability to reform? 

SCHREIBER: It’s a long trip. And what I would say is they should look at, people like Natalie Jaresko, the extraordinary ex finance minister for Ukraine, who had the unenviable job of coming into that country and trying to turn around what was a system that was essentially really following in the model of the old Soviet system, because that’s how the government has been controlled for so many years. I don’t know if people realize this, but Ukraine, in more ways than one, has been struggling to get out from under the shadow of its Soviet neighbor for quite some time. And now the Russian Federation. And there have been several regimes that have arguably been a lot more loyal to Moscow than they have been to the people of Ukraine. So there is this system, this bureaucratic kind of arcane system that people like Natalie and people like President Zelensky have been trying to turn around. And it’s very, very difficult to change. But I think they’re doing a pretty great job, at least from my perspective. And certainly, I think the president’s openness to allegations and pursuing them suggests that this isn’t something he’s trying to sweep under the rug. 

HOOVER: Yeah. This week, President Zelensky delivered his first in-person address to the United Nations General Assembly, and he raised alarms about Russia’s weaponization of food, Russia’s weaponization of nuclear energy, Russia’s kidnapping of children. And he appealed to the global community to continue supporting Ukraine in this fight. Take a look at what he said. 

ZELENSKY: The goal of the present war against Ukraine is to turn our land, our people, our lives, our resources into a weapon against you, against the international rules-based order. Many seats in the General Assembly hall may become empty if Russia succeeds with its treachery and aggression. The main thing is that it is not only about Ukraine. 

HOOVER: He also said Russian actions are clearly a genocide. How effectively do you think he made the case to the global community to stay involved in supporting Ukraine? 

SCHREIBER: Well, if his own level of risk and passion and emotion isn’t a sign of something, I don’t know what is. I also know for a fact from our partners on the ground that what he’s saying is true, that what’s happening in the agricultural– this is the breadbasket of the world and the way that it will impact both us in the West in terms of our trade and our food resources, and in particular more vulnerable communities like Africa, where the Ukrainian grain is really, really essential. He’s absolutely right, in my opinion, that Putin is weaponizing these resources. And I know that for a fact, because one of our partners is a guy named Ryan Hendrickson, who’s an ex special Forces officer who was injured by a landmine in Afghanistan and now makes it his life’s work to go to other countries where there are mines that need to be removed and taking care of it. But they’ve laid mines throughout all these ag lands. So that these farmers who go out on their combines and tractors So I know that that’s happening. I know intimately because we’re funding the work to try to make it safe for these farmers to go back into their fields. I also know for a fact that one of our partners, Save Ukraine, so far has rescued 176 kids that they’ve pulled back into Ukraine, kids that were kidnaped by by Russians and fed a steady diet of hate and violence towards their own country, and that these kids then have to be brought back to Ukraine, given a place to rehabilitate, where they can be reminded of who they are and where they come from and that they are not at war with anybody, that they are just children. And it’s– I know because I see these operations. So it’s so hard for me to listen to people say that it’s bullshit  or that it’s not happening or that it’s not real. Because I know I’ve seen the kids, I’ve seen the– I’ve seen the farmers with one leg. I’ve seen the work, I’ve seen the people, and they’re incredibly strong and resilient and everyone said it 100 times, but it’s got to stop. 

HOOVER: The value of the UN has been debated for decades, including on the original Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. when he hosted U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Take a look. 

MOYNIHAN: The fact is that that place is a good parliament. Debate is what that place can in fact do. What it can’t do is legislate; what it can’t do is act; and it has no such powers; and its pretension to those powers are what get it in most trouble. But precisely it is a setting in which to encounter what you’ve called “moral reality” it seems to me that’s a place where we should be.

HOOVER: There he’s arguing that the value of the UN is that it creates this platform where you can make a moral argument for the whole world to see. 

SCHREIBER: That’s right. I do think that’s the value of it, and I think that’s what President Zelensky has done. You know, a lot of this is really simple. I think if you just look back to the Budapest Memorandum of 1994. We asked– we, the Americans and the Russians together, asked the third largest nuclear power at that time, which was Ukraine, to give up in exchange for our solemn promise to protect the sovereignty of their borders. Those borders were crossed in 2014 with the annexing of Crimea, and now with the full scale invasion by Russia, a country that swore to protect it. So it just couldn’t be any clearer than that. And I think that that’s the sort of thing voiced in the platform of the UN that is incredibly important for everyone to remember. Not just to be supportive of Ukraine, but to be aware of the dangers that are out there when dealing with Russia. 

HOOVER: President Biden also addressed the UN General Assembly. He argued and emphasized that US support had to continue to free Ukraine and that the threat of Russian victory could pose a threat to sovereignty everywhere. He mentioned Ukraine finally 20 minutes into his 30 minute speech. Was President Biden’s message strong enough? 

SCHREIBER: You know, I should reiterate here that I’m terrible at politics. What I understand about this coming election is that Biden needs to be very careful about what he says to the American people. And I think he has advisers who are far more intelligent than me who said, ‘put Ukraine 15 minutes in.’ And I believe that there’s a reason for that. What I’m not as comfortable with is the fact that there is a reason for that, that there is a faction in this country who is denying a country that’s fighting for its sovereignty and the same values, democratic values, that we fight for here, and denying that relationship. And not willing to understand the symbiotic relationship that we have to Ukraine and what would happen, what will happen – and I think that was the president’s, that was Zelensky’s point in his speech in the UN – what will happen should they lose the fight that many people believe they’re fighting for us as well. 

HOOVER: To what do you attribute the decline in enthusiasm for support for Ukraine that you see piping up on both the left and the right in this country? 

SCHREIBER: It’s a hard, it’s a troubling time in the world. There are a lot of issues, you know. It’s a troubling time to raise children, you know. And I think people are tired. I think people are really, really tired. That’s why, you know, people throw around the phrase Ukraine fatigue. 

HOOVER: How do you combat it? 

SCHREIBER: Go see them. That’s how I do it. 

HOOVER: But for 300 million Americans… 

SCHREIBER: For 300 million Americans…

HOOVER: 320 million Americans can’t go to Ukraine.

SCHREIBER: Well, I’ll tell you. This is something that I say a lot, but it bears repeating. I think that America is a nation of grandchildren. I don’t think you’ll find many Americans who don’t have a grandparent who didn’t come from somewhere else, who didn’t claw their way out of some authoritarian regime or some bad situation so that they could come here and find freedom of expression, religion, whatever else they wanted, and to find a way to give their kids the best opportunity they could possibly give them so that you and I could be sitting here doing this rather than fighting in the front lines in Donbass. 

HOOVER: Yep. 

SCHREIBER: And I think we owe a debt to our grandparents to say we care about the values that they fought for. Because we wouldn’t be here without those values, frankly. And I think that’s what we need to remember, or at least what I want my kids to learn from this is that’s what it is to be American, that those are the freedoms that exemplify who we are and what we’re capable of. You know, we’re still the greatest country in the world because we’re still the place where everyone else wants to come to give their kids a shot. So let’s keep being the place that gives our kids a shot. And that means no matter where you’re from, you’ve got a shot here. And that’s what the Ukrainian people are fighting for. 

HOOVER: You’ve been to Ukraine several times. You’ve been on the ground. What have you observed about the will and resolve of the Ukrainian people? Because you have maintained your optimism that they will triumph in this battle. 

SCHREIBER: Okay, I’m going to say some things that I shouldn’t be saying because the reality is I’m not here to do anything political. What I’m trying to do in Ukraine is really about humanitarian aid. It just, I see people that I think we can help, and we found a way to do it, and that’s important to me. Having said that, having gotten involved with them, I have some feelings about it. They’re tough as hell. They’re tough as hell. I’m a huge boxing fan and you only need to look at Oleksandr Usyk or Vasiliy Lomachenko to know that these people are some of the greatest fighters in the world and in my opinion Putin made a huge mistake picking this fight personally. That’s one thing I think about it, knowing the Ukrainian people. The other thing I feel about it is, no one in this day and age deserves to suffer like that. No one in this day and age deserves to worry about their children like that. It seems barbaric and there is no need. It’s, It’s, It’s outrageous. It’s uncalled for, it’s inhumane, it’s barbaric. And it is an attempt at genocide. It’s an attempt to wipe out a people and a culture off the map. And that’s not how we do things in this day and age. 

HOOVER: You’ve said you’re hugely proud of American democracy. Your patriotism comes through in your answers to the questions. But you’ve also expressed, even though you say you’re not political, you’ve expressed a concern about the decline in political discourse… 

SCHREIBER: Yeah.

HOOVER: …and the ability of individuals to be on different sides of political issues and transcend those political differences and see eye to eye. It reminds me of your Showtime series, Ray Donovan, where your father was played by former President Trump’s most famous Hollywood celebrity, Jon Voight. 

SCHREIBER: I love Jon. 

HOOVER: And you say that. You say you love him despite, you know, political differences. 

SCHREIBER: I love him probably because of our political differences. 

HOOVER: How do we get more of that? 

SCHREIBER: I don’t know, into political discourse. I don’t know. We’ve screwed up and we’ve got to figure out some way to backtrack civility into this process.

HOOVER: But you sat here and you said it’s because you love him. 

SCHREIBER: Yeah. 

HOOVER: And it strikes me, it seems to me that there’s some kind of human component. 

SCHREIBER: If push came to shove, I’d lay my life down for him. And I think he’d do the same for me. And I think there’s something about that that’s – I hate to say it because it sounds corny – that’s very American. And I think that’s what we need to do for our brothers and sisters in Ukraine right now, is we need to have that kind of pride and compassion. 

HOOVER: You’ve balked at the idea of making a movie about this episode in Ukrainian history. But have you thought about how cinematography might capture this moment in a future effort? 

SCHREIBER: I have. We just sent the first cut of our documentary “Portrait of the President” to his office, and we’re hoping to release it as soon as possible. 

HOOVER: It’s a documentary on President Zelensky. 

SCHREIBER: President Zelensky. Yes. It’s about the evolution of this former actor from a small steel town in southern Ukraine into this extraordinary person who took on the Russian Federation. 

HOOVER: You’ve said that being an actor was perhaps the perfect training to be the leader in war. Why is that? 

SCHREIBER: Actors aren’t good at much, but what they’re good at in the course of a narrative is choices. That’s what defines a performance. How am I going to play this moment? How am I going to play that moment? And what’s that going to add up to in the overall narrative arc of the piece. And I think it took an actor– and this is, you know, a slightly outrageous thing to say – but I do think it took an actor to know that the second act of this play had to be Henry the Fifth. 

HOOVER: St. Crispin’s Day.

SCHREIBER: In his case, that meant putting his life on the line, so it’s an extraordinary role. But he knew he had to play it that way. And he’s got that level of intelligence– Not all actors do, but he’s educated enough and understands the overall world picture, and the Shakespearean world picture enough to know that sometimes you have to draw a line in the sand, and you have to say this is bigger than my life. And when people do that we take notice. 

HOOVER: But not all great actors are great leaders. 

SCHREIBER: That’s right. They’re not, and most of them aren’t. There have been a few. But this one is. And I think his lack of selfishness in my perspective, to me, knowing what he went through and knowing the choices that he made. Yanukovych got on that helicopter and went home. He stayed. He stayed, he got his cell phone out, and he said, “я тут, ми тут” which in Ukrainian means, ‘I’m here. We’re here.’ And the simplicity of that message and how important that message was not just to the Ukrainian people, but to all of us to know we’re here together and we can push back. That’s the power and the function of our democracy. If we don’t like it, we can say no. And that’s, I think he’s set an incredible example for people who are dealing with these authoritarian regimes popping up everywhere now. So you can say no. That’s what democracy gives us. But we have to get together. “ми тут.” We are here. 

HOOVER: Liev Schreiber, thank you for coming to Firing Line. 

SCHREIBER: Thank you for having me.