She played a replicant in Blade Runner, but it was in her role as an environmental activist that Daryl Hannah spoke to the Straight from Los Angeles in March. Only a few weeks after her arrest in February, when she chained herself to the gates of the White House in protest of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, Hannah was getting down to the business of taking on media duties for the documentary Greedy Lying Bastards. She’s the executive producer of the film, which uncovers the massive financing behind the climate-change-denial campaign. "I came into the project towards the end," Hannah said by phone. "I felt like it was a no-brainer because it approaches it in a humorous way but also with the gravitas that it needs and deserves, and with the urgency that it deserves."

To her credit, Hannah hasn’t shied away from taking her message into enemy territory, going on The Sean Hannity Show after her arrest to take a little dismissive ribbing from the Fox News host. She insists that it’s worth it if it means the film plays to more than just the converted. "I make a concerted effort to do conservative media," she said. "People go, ‘Oh no, don’t do that; they’ll eat you alive.’ But I don’t care; that’s what I need to do. I need to reach those people and at least give them the opportunity to listen to the information. I really believe if people have information, they will tend to make wise decisions."

But what about Hannity himself, who told Hannah: "I don’t believe this global-warming nonsense is real." Does he really mean that? "I don’t know," she answered, "and the truth is that while I think it’s important for people to face reality, in the end, even if they don’t believe in the climate crisis, the prescription for contamination and pollution and lack of water and the things we’re experiencing is still the same. We still need to move away from these lethal, toxic forms of energy that are destroying our life-support systems, so clean energy is still the answer whether you believe in the climate crisis or not, because you can’t not believe in toxins, you know?"

Georgia Straight, April 2013