Do we like Morena Baccarin?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Nothing harmful found and real refugee advocacy on the record, but the public record is thin, so we stop short of the top end.
Morena Baccarin was born in Rio de Janeiro and grew up the daughter of Brazilian actress Vera Setta, then trained at Juilliard in New York. Her break was on the sci-fi cult hit Firefly, which she calls her first TV experience and says it “really set the bar for everything else I did.” She's still good friends with the cast.
The CV runs from Firefly to Homeland (she calls that role “something grounded, something very real”), then Gotham, and then the Deadpool films. Of Deadpool she says it was “the most fun I've had ever on a film.” Lately she has been in the disaster sequel Greenland 2: Migration, which she promoted in interviews with JoBlo.
Now the harm check, and it's a short one. We searched her name against LGBTQ+ and trans issues, women's rights, politics, vaccines and climate and found no harmful statement, campaign or donation of her own. We also looked at her recent projects and found no pattern of work with people who push harm, though we only checked the headline titles, so call that a fair read and not a forensic one.
The good stuff is the real stuff. In late 2018 she spent three days with Venezuelan refugees in Cúcuta, Colombia, for the International Rescue Committee, and said they “look like you and me.” A month later she wrote a Newsweek opinion piece warning that Venezuela's crisis could produce more refugees than the war in Syria, and calling for long-term fixes like health care, schooling and legal papers.
So, a lean-in yes. A decent record on the right side of the refugee question, a long and well-liked career, and nothing nasty on file. If she says something dodgy down the track, we'll update.