June 3rd, 2012

It’s not unusual for celebrities to get involved in politics. Being a famous face can put you in a unique position to garner attention for important causes, shedding light on difficult issues, or perhaps using your platform to campaign for a candidate you believe. This happens to be the case for a number of Massachusetts celebrities campaigning on behalf of Elizabeth Warren, who just won the democratic nomination for this fall’s senatorial race against incumbent Scott Brown (R). Massachusetts natives like Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and John Krasinski have been holding fundraisers for the Harvard professor, including a recent one held in California.

The event was held at J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot production studio in Santa Monica on Monday, May 21^st, and helped raise over $250,000 for the consumer advocate. J.J. Abrams is no stranger to strong women, or Massachusetts—he created the television shows “Alias” which starred Ben Affleck’s wife, Jennifer Garner, and “Fringe” which is set in Boston.

Attendees of the event included Garner, Reese Witherspoon, Zach Braff, Dana Delany, Tobey Maguire, Alan Horn, and Writers Guild president Chris Keyser. Unfortunately, due to a scheduling conflict, both Damon and Krasinski were filming on location and couldn’t attend the fundraiser. Other top contributors included the likes of directors Steven Spielberg, Rob Reiner, Jeffrey Katzenberg, actress Sally Field, Harvey Weinstein and Alan Ladd Jr.