Better Call Saul Actor Claims Environmental Activism Negatively Impacted His Career: ‘Gave People the Creeps’

Plenty of conservative actors and artists have complained that their politics hold them back in the entertainment industry, but it’s not often a liberal performer makes the claim. One of Hollywood’s most outspoken environmentalists is saying just that.

Better Call Saul and Young Sheldon actor Ed Begley Jr., 73, claimed in an interview with Page Six that he went through a long-acting dry spell and said it was his politics that made people hesitant to work with him.

“I gave people the creeps,” the actor said.

Begley Jr. believed people didn’t want to be around him out of fear he’d shame them and their carbon footprint.

“People were afraid that I was going to point at them exiting their limo or their SUV and go, ‘How can you drive a car?'” he said, adding that he doesn’t judge others over their choices and people should just “do what they can.”

The actor said his agents told him in the ’90s to “back off” his outspoken environmentalism because it made it more difficult to book him jobs.

Bill Maher recently praised Begley Jr. as one of the very few environmentalists in Hollywood who actually walks the walk. A reality series, Living with Ed, was released in 2007 about his environment-conscious lifestyle and it ran for three seasons.

While you are likely to find a Leonardo DiCaprio partying on a yacht in between global warming lectures, Begley Jr. doesn’t lead the A-lister lifestyle people might expect for an actor who has been on many popular shows. Begley Jr. actually claimed his focus on lowering his carbon footprint kept his bills low and made not getting work a little easier.

“I grow a lot of my own food, I collect my rainwater, I have my own electricity, I heat my water with the sun. All of it makes for a very inexpensive life,” he said.