Do we like Stanley Tucci?
Our score: 8 out of 10. A clean record on harm, a few real charity ties and a gay-roles stance that's friendly, though the paper trail is thinner than for some.
Tucci has been working in Hollywood for 45 years, by his own count at his Walk of Fame ceremony. He got the star alongside Emily Blunt, with Meryl Streep, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr. and Dwayne Johnson turning up to speak. Not bad for a bloke who joked it had been honorable and exhausting in equal measure.
On the harm check, the search came back clean. No harmful words about LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants or the planet turned up, and no run of dodgy co-stars or studios either: his recent work is the mainstream Prada sequel and a major network's Olympics coverage. Where he has spoken politically, it was to criticise the first Trump administration in 2017, saying he imagined it would eviscerate the arts.
The nearest thing to a stoush is the old straight-actors-playing-gay debate. On Desert Island Discs in 2023 he said an actor is an actor, and that playing people unlike yourself is the whole point. He added that he was flattered when gay men praised his gay roles. Where you land depends on whether you see casting as craft or as representation, but it's a long way from hostility.
The good stuff is real if not flashy. He designed a T-shirt for War Child in 2023 with all profits going to the charity. Years earlier he sat on the board of the Food Bank for New York City and helped launch its anti-hunger campaign. NBC also tapped him to front Milan Cortina Olympics travel segments, which for him is basically a free feed.
To be straight about the gaps: no court rulings, lawsuits or credible allegations against him turned up, and nothing on how he treats crew, which is hardly a damning silence. This is a thinner file than a campaigner's, so it's a strong pass rather than a gold medal.