By Staff
PARK CITY, Utah — After a night of heavy partying at local hotspot The Cabin, hosted by George Clooney and Rande Gerber’s Casamigos Tequila, Hollywood elites, in town for Sundance Film Festival’s final curtain call (it’s relocating to Boulder next year), shifted into “après chill mode” on Sunday. The high-end hospitality lounges, courtesy of corporate sponsors, traded late-night shots for a more refined atmosphere of gourmet catering, champagne, and caviar. The luxurious retreats serve as the day’s primary hubs for industry networking, film panels, and conversations about the hot topic of the day—politics.
After A-listers and attendees reminisced about the festival’s storied past, the discussion inevitably turned to the recent tragic events in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where 34-year-old nurse Alex Pretti was killed by immigration officers after intervening in a confrontation involving a group of protesters and border patrol agents preparing to make an arrest.
Edward Norton, the highly acclaimed Oscar-nominated actor, writer, and director, raised this tragic incident during a conversation with Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogan at the studio of media powerhouse The Hollywood Reporter. The trio was in town to promote their film, ‘The Invite,’ directed by Wilde. Norton remarked, “These days it’s: ‘What are we going to do about mass Gestapo shooting American citizens?’ We are sitting here talking about movies while an illegal army is being mounted against U.S. citizens.”
In a red carpet interview with Variety, Wilde, wearing an “ICE-OUT” pin, expressed her outrage: “I’m appalled and sickened. We can’t go another day just sort of accepting this as our new norm. It’s outrageous. People are being murdered.”
Expanding on the topic in a conversation with a reporter from the L.A. Times, Norton conveyed that everyday citizens weren’t doing enough and suggested that they consider staying home from work to deliver a message. “Even though all people kind of have to put one foot in front of the other and deal with demands of the day, we cannot act like this is not happening. I think what they’re doing in Minnesota with the strike needs to expand. I think we should be talking about a national general economic strike until this is over.”
The following day, NYU professor, best-selling author and podcast host Scott Galloway further elaborated, asserting that a one-day strike similar to the student-led initiative in Minneapolis wouldn’t be effective. “It can’t be a day. A day is annoyance. It needs to be a week or a month.”
Most attendees, including producers, film stars, and the general public, many of whom paid $6,900 for sold-out all-access passes to mingle with the stars, shared Norton’s sentiment. Although there was broad agreement that the deaths of Pretti and Renée Good, who was also killed during a confrontation with ICE agents earlier in the month, were tragic, recent polls indicate that the overwhelming majority of regular Americans, “63%” still support the mass deportation of illegal immigrants let into the country by Joe Biden.
On CNN, author and media personality Batya Ungar-Sargon, host of “Batya!” on News Nation, responded critically to Norton’s call for action: “I love to hear a multi-millionaire telling Americans to stay home from work to protest people trying to rectify an open border that he, and President Obama, and President Clinton had no problem with when Joe Biden opened the border and let, ten, fifteen million illegals in this country, and they had nothing to say. And now these multi-millionaires sit there, full of their piety and say, ‘You stay home from work.’ ‘You make no money’ — to protect these illegals and illegal criminals that they’re trying to deport. I find this to be just deplorable.”
Greg Gutfeld further amplified this sentiment in a recent monologue on ‘The Five,’ criticizing the selective outrage prevalent, including among mainstream media: “We had dozens of deaths where you didn’t say sh*t—Jocelyn Nungaray, Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, Mollie Tibbetts—Here’s three pages of women who have been murdered by illegal aliens… This is the Democratic Party’s mess that we are trying to clean up… They (media) were not concerned when innocent women were raped and murdered. They didn’t care about the 50 who died when they were incarcerated under Obama—but now they care!”
Ungar-Sargon added, “Everything I’ve heard about this person (Pretti) suggests that he was a wonderful human being” while clarifying, being killed while interfering with law enforcement is not murder.
Read the full article in the next issue of Rounder Magazine.
UPDATE: A recent report in the New York Post revealed that Pretti “was known to federal agents” and may have been part of a far-left network designed to obstruct ICE and Border Patrol agents tasked with apprehending illegal immigrants. Newly released video footage shows Pretti involved in another altercation with federal agents eleven days before his death, during which he is seen kicking a vehicle and spitting at an agent.
Lead image: Olivia Wilde, Seth Rogen and Edward Norton attend the premiere of The Invite by Olivia Wilde, an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. © 2026 Sundance Institute | photo by Sam Emenogu..
