Richard Dreyfuss quit acting because he wanted to save ‘my country’ from ‘damage’ – Reuters

Richard Dreyfuss is a man determined to fight for his country.

Known for his starring roles in films like “Jaws,” “American Graffiti” and “The Goodbye Girl,” for which he won the Best Actor Oscar, Dreyfuss has since moved on to a life of educating others about the civic practices.

“I gave up something I loved, and had loved since I was nine, for something else that I loved so much,” the 75-year-old actor admitted.

For Dreyfuss, this reason “was to save my country”.

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“I firmly believe that if we don’t restart the study of civics, we will be dead before 2050. We will have the same name and it will be a nightmare,” the actor revealed on The Glenn Beck Podcast.

Speaking about the entertainment industry, Dreyfuss said, “If you want to be an actor in America, you can do it… in almost every city in America because they have locals, and they have regionals, and they have Shakespeare. But if you wanna be a movie star, you gotta go to LA [Los Angeles] or New York,” he explained to Beck, whose daughter wants to become an actress.

Richard Dreyfuss says he left the entertainment and comedy industry to study civics.
(Warner Brothers)

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“These are tough, tough cities,” Dreyfus said. “And we don’t live in Los Angeles because…I retired and went to Oxford for four years to learn this subject…of civility and good citizenship. And the damage done to my country,” he noted.

Dreyfuss, author of the book “A Thought Scares Me,” revealed, “I had led a blessed life and gave it up for a blessed life.”

Richard Dreyfuss pictured alongside Roy Scheider during a scene from the 1975 film ‘Jaws’.
(Silver Screen Collection)

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“It makes me mad that people don’t understand what this place means,” he said of the United States of America. “What a step forward in human progress does this country represent and how quickly we can abandon it without, without a second thought.”

In 2006, Dreyfuss founded The Dreyfuss Civics Initiative (TDCI). Its goal is to “revive the teaching of civics in American public education” and “to equip future generations with the critical thinking skills they need to realize the vast potential of American citizenship.”