DX: To what extent do you see your work in Hotel Rwanda and on this movie as being part of the same genre?
DC: As I mentioned, Royce--the one who pulled me into this--was the person who was trying to make noise on the Hill, he and his Democratic counterpart, Donald Payne (D-NJ) about Darfur, about what was happening in Sudan, and he wasn't having a lot of success raising the temperature on the issue.

And then Hotel Rwanda"came out. He saw it and he saw very similar echoes and a very personalized way of touching people, and he thought it would help bridge the understanding about Darfur. So there was a Congressional delegation and they invited me to go on it with he and several other members of Congress.

I went, and John Prendergast came, and the ABC cameras came and Nightline came and filmed it. And this just started this ball rolling downhill. And once I had been there, and seen the effect of what was happening and the devastation and talking to people, people who had nothing but meager bits, but were sharing a handful of peanuts...I was like, "Whoa..."

DX: How do we make this issue real to the people of this nation--in such a way that they can take the same path and not have it become a trendy political issue? We've seen that happen to Katrina and the Tsunami victims.
AS: I think getting involved and being creative in your involvement and giving back, as opposed to just making a donation and never seeing that money again. There are so many ways to get involved creatively. We are a testament to that. So I think really finding a creative way to get involved, joining with others in your community [is what matters].

We've got a great network, The Genocide Intervention Network, where you get your own site and you get connected with community members. You're not just doing it by yourself – giving money to some trendy cause – you're actually involved in getting things back. And that's what made the difference to me.

There's a lot of work in activism, and [then there's the word] "burn-out." There's just so much to keep us busy. Countless people wanting to listen to you speak, to ask "What can I do?" I think there is so much to do that if you really put yourself into that, then you won't burn out.
DC: I think America as a country has actually done a lot more than a lot of other nations have done about awareness, advocacy, and trying to push their leaders forward. We're trying to get that to happen on a international level. The Genocide Intervention Network just recently opened an office in London, to deal with it on a European level, get it into a global scale. We're just trying to "move and shake," and just "move and shake" within the positions we can move from. Hopefully doors will open if we continue to push it.

DX: When actors get involve themselves in activism, it puts their careers into a different light. Do you talk to your friends about it, like George [Clooney] or Brad [Pitt]?
DC: I don't know where it fits, vis a vis. I think a lot of people think doing advocacy work really helps in your career. I think, as you are a human being, and you're feeing off of being a human being, giving value and meaning to your life, then in all walks of your life it absolutely helps. As far as acting goes, it sometimes cuts against it. It makes it more difficult, as a career. It makes it more difficult in our business, because you get pigeon-holed. It's just another way to get pigeon-holed and people don't think you can do a bunch of things and those doors start shutting.

Does that mean that I stop doing it for me? No. Or George? Or others that I've spoken to? No. You keep doing it because that's where your heart lies. It definitely puts everything in perspective. Way more than my acting, it puts my family life into perspective, it puts my children's relationship to me in perspective--what are you trying to accomplish and achieve as a global citizen in the brief time that you're here?

What do you want to do? Do you want to be on record between you and your god and your family and your friends as having tried to do something? Or just, you know, to make as much money as you can and get a nice big house and cool ass cars and nice clothes? You can do that too. But I don't think that’s how you want to measure yourself.

DX: You mentioned in the film, that you got a bill passed in California, and that there were like 15 more states coming along. What's the progress on that?
AS: Yeah, we've been moving. California started because we were working at the university and the legislator came up to us and said, "This is a great idea, help me write this law.” Okay, we helped him write a law. And then we started getting a call from legislators from all across the country. So in the last year--my final scene in the film, that was September of last year--we passed laws in another 12 states.

There are still four more pieces of legislation still in play. Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin just passed it this year. We've got commitments from legislators in another 15 states, so we're working on all 50. There's a federal bill in the US Senate that just passed the Senate banking committee. It's the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act, introduced by Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Richard Shelby (R-AL). It passed the House of Representatives in July. So that will bring divestment into a federal level.
DC: It's great timing, given the confluence of events that are happening at this time. There's peace talks they are scheduling in Libya at the end of this month. This year, there's supposed to be a 30,000-member peace-keeping force that's going to go into the area. So its really time, in our opinion, for us to push even more now. Continued on page 3 »