I really don't understand this idea that we shouldn't listen to actors. Yes, most of them are shallower than a puddle (Tom Cruise, etc.) but some of them are more listenable than other public personalities, such as politicans, for instance. Yes, I don't know of any actor that can hold forth with, say, a public intellectual, but America has few of those, and most people don't know who they are anyway.
So, if someone is going to start a discourse worth having on a public level in the USA, it's going to be Matt Damon or the like. Few others can do it, unfortunately. I know some public intellectuals who would do it with good cheer and humor but they are buried on the Charlie Rose Show.
