Jamie Lee Curtis notes NBA protests are similar to plot in her 1987 movie: 'Dreams do come true'

When Jamie Lee Curtis heard that professional athletes were refusing to play in protest, in this case because of racial injustice, she was touched.

Milwaukee Bucks players decided to boycott the team’s NBA playoff game against the Orlando Magic on Wednesday, following the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis. The move prompted players in the WNBA, the MLB and the MLS to take the day off too. (The NFL didn’t have any games scheduled but canceled practices.) It’s all similar to the plot of Curtis’s 1987 movie Amazing Grace and Chuck, the story of a Little League player (Chuck) who refuses to pitch again until nuclear weapons are disarmed. He’s soon joined by a basketball player, “Amazing Grace” Smith, played by real-life former pro-basketballer Alex English. Together, the two spark a movement in which children all over the world refuse to speak until they win over the others.

“Visions take time to manifest their destiny,” Curtis said. “Think of all the brave and bold ideas that started with one human being saying no more. Let’s continue this today. Together we can change the world.”

The trailer for the film includes the now prescient line, “Maybe one day this story will be true.”

Curtis added a longer note, explaining her take on the sports boycott. “They are saying, as the characters in the movie said years ago, We are human beings. We will no longer entertain you, and by our silence, sanction something we will no longer endure as if we are powerless,” she said. “We are not powerless.”

Curtis ended her comment by calling the protests the kind of “good trouble” that late U.S. Rep. John Lewis encouraged.

“In the film the boycott lasted quite a while,” Curtis said. “Can this boycott endure? Can athletes from all other sports join in? Can this cross racial lines?”

Although the long-term effect of the real-life boycotts was unclear, Yahoo Sports reported Thursday that NBA players voted Thursday morning to resume games Friday or Saturday.

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