Ridley Scott slams 'nutcase' Donald Trump over coronavirus response, calls world leaders idiots
The director of 'Alien', 'Gladiator' and 'The Martian', Ridley Scott, has called out POTUS Donald Trump and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson over their attitude and approach towards the coronavirus outbreak.
While doing an interview from his home, Scott, 82, shared that he thought "this orange-headed fellow that’s running us is a nutcase, isn’t he?" He went on to call half of the world's leaders "idiots" and the other half "despots", Variety reports.
"There are very few worthwhile ones. If anyone has half a brain, they wouldn’t want to go into politics anyway, right?" Scott asked. He also suggested that countries like the Uk should be reintroducing rationing. "I’m a war baby, so, in the war years, we had rationing."
"People could not binge on food, we had ration books with coupons where you were at a limited amount that you could buy. They should do that now because people are buying so much food and then the food is rotting," he shared.
"Jesus, Boris, get out your thinking cap, cos what we’re now talking on is an iPhone: a perfect coupon distributor to limit what you can buy each time you go to the shops. And that way, you have order. You must have order and calm," he said.
Scott also spoke about the US media coverage of the coronavirus pandemic and said the coverage was "insane". "I still think CNN’s the best, and they are in dismay at how it’s not being handled properly," he revealed. "It’ll be an experience of mild to severe flu for most people and old geezers like me have gotta watch my back," he said of the coronavirus (those older are at higher risk of contracting the virus).
At the time when the lockdown was announced, Scott had been shooting 'The Last Duel', which is a drama set in medieval France starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. He told Variety, “I finished in France after shooting for a month and decided it was sensible to close down for the time being. We’re a month in and it looked fantastic. The period is 1360, so we’re back to medieval France and it’s kind of interesting. Back about two weeks ago, we decided to hold it out because it’s silly to continue and wait for the inevitable to happen. We were set to go to Ireland in a week and it was a natural break, so I said, ‘Why don’t we stop here and we’ll return?'”
Ever since the outbreak of the coronavirus, Trump has been criticized for making a number of inaccurate remarks about the disease during press briefings. We had previously reported how Dr Anthony Fauci, the driving force of the US Coronavirus Task Force, said that he has to tell Trump facts many times to get his point across to him.
US coronavirus infections surged to top the world amid warnings that the pandemic is accelerating in cities like New York, Chicago and Detroit. There are more than 590,000 people have been infected and more than 28,000 people have died globally when this report was published.