Oscar nominee Casey Affleck has given animal rights group PETA a big boost ahead of Sunday’s (26Feb17) Academy Awards by fronting a new video about circus cruelty.
The Manchester By The Sea star, who is up for a Best Actor honour at the weekend, has teamed up with PETA officials for a new video calling on families to avoid circuses that use live animals.
He reveals that tigers and other big cats used for entertainment are confined to tiny barren cages and whipped to perform tricks.
Casey says, “I choose to work in the entertainment industry, but animals in circuses and other travelling shows are never given a choice.”
A PETA spokesperson tells WENN, “Although Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus recently announced its impending closure, there are still multiple travelling circuses in the U.S. that use live animals.
“As a parent, Casey Affleck says that he was particularly horrified to learn that terrified cubs are typically taken away from their mothers at a young age, in order to make them easier to control and to accustom them to human handling.”
The actor adds, “This industry tears families apart and subjects individuals to a life of torment and deprivation. Trainers drag the big cats around by heavy chains or ropes around their necks and hit them with sticks, poles, and whips. They beat them mercilessly and bully them into jumping through hoops.”
Affleck joins a growing list of celebrities, including Olivia Munn, Jason Biggs, Edie Falco, and Anjelica Huston, who have teamed up with PETA to speak out against circuses that use and abuse animals.
