Actress Bel Powley Talks About Antisemitism at Celebrity Screening for Holocaust Series ‘A Small Light’
by Shiryn Ghermezian
Bel Powley attending the National Geographic, Disney+, and Hulu premiere of “A Small Light” at Alice Tully Hall on April 25, 2023 in New York City. Photo: by Anthony Behar/PictureGroup/Sipa USA for National Geographic via Reuters
During a screening party for the National Geographic miniseries A Small Light last week in West Hollywood, California, the show’s lead star, British actress Bel Powley, spoke to a celebrity-studded audience about her character’s heroism and the timeliness of the show amid the current rise in antisemitism, she revealed in an Instagram post.
The limited series from National Geographic, Disney+ and Hulu — which premiered in May — focuses on Bel‘s character Miep Gies and tells the true story of how the Dutch woman risked her life to help Anne Frank, her family and other Jews hide in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam during the Holocaust. Gies was the secretary of Frank’s father Otto Frank, who is played in the show by Liev Schreiber.
The screening event on June 15 — hosted by Powley and the show’s executive music producer Este Haim, from the Jewish rock band Haim — was attended by celebrities that included Elle Fanning, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Kaia Gerber, Jenna Dewan, Busy Philipps, Sasha Alexander, Edoardo Ponti and Hilary Shor.
Attendees saw the show’s first episode and during the event, Powley and the show’s creators engaged in a conversation moderated by actress and comedian Hannah Einbinder. Einbinder also took off her Star of David necklace and gave it to Powley when the latter said she stopped wearing one after she and her sister experienced antisemitic bullying at school, according to Variety. Powley later thanked Einbinder in an Instagram post for the kind gesture and said, “I will wear it with pride!”
Chriqui called A Small Light “a fresh and poignant take on a story many of us know or are familiar with,” and applauded the show’s cast and crew for “telling such an important and timely story in a way that gives another perspective and educates in an incredibly entertaining way.”
“Last night I was reminded of the power of storytelling and how grateful I am to be able to tell stories for a living,” she wrote in an Instagram post following the screening. “I was reminded that we humans are here to be kind to each other, support each other and stand up for each other. I raced home last night and binged the next two episodes and look SO forward to binging the rest.”
At the screening party, Powley also spoke to Variety about filming A Small Light during the time that rapper Kanye West made a series of antisemitic remarks in October 2022.
“We were filming the show when all of the Kanye stuff was happening,” Powley told the magazine. “I was obviously living in the world of the show, which has a lot of Nazi rhetoric because we’re making a show about the Nazi occupation in 1942, but then suddenly seeing and hearing that same rhetoric spoken now by a world-famous celebrity with huge influence was so freaky and unsettling and saddening.”
She also told the publication she was “blown away” to learn about Gies’ heroic efforts during the Holocaust and how she was “this girl who was kind of just like me, a normal young woman … who did this extraordinary thing.” The cast and crew of A Small Light met Gie’s granddaughter when she visited the set during filming and at the show’s premiere in Amsterdam.
“We need to keep telling these stories as less and less Holocaust survivors are still alive,” Powley additionally told Variety. “It’s also important to tell them in different ways that are going to make people really think, ‘Oh, that’s a real person going through a real experience.’ That it’s not just historical facts.”
