Joel Edgerton, with the help of his A-List Hollywood friends, is taking The Fred Hollows Foundation to America.
The Australian actor is planning a major event in Los Angeles in June or July to raise the foundation’s profile in the US.
The foundation, inspired by the life and work of acclaimed late Australian eye surgeon Professor Fred Hollows, has restored the eyesight of more than two million people in some of the world’s poorest nations for as little as $A25 per for each patient.
“The US is one of the most philanthropic environments so the Hollows Foundation was keen to expand here,” Sydney-born Edgerton, who lives in Los Angeles and has been an ambassador for the foundation for four years, told AAP.
An event on the weekend at the Hollywood Hills home of a friend was supposed to have just 30 people attend but 80 turned up including Shameless star Emmy Rossum, fashion designer Phoebe Dahl, head of powerful Hollywood talent agency Creative Artists Agency Bryan Lourd and former Home & Away actor Jackson Gallagher.
Video of Edgerton’s visit to Hollows Foundation doctors in Nepal and to an indigenous community in country NSW where patients who have been blind for years but have their eyesight restored with a quick procedure has stunned Hollywood’s A-List.
The Hollows Foundation website also has emotional video of patients seeing for the first time in decades.
Edgerton, who is currently shooting the sci-fi film Bright with Will Smith, said the US mega actor has thrown his support behind establishing the Hollows Foundation in the US.
“He reached out and said, ‘What can I do?'” Edgerton said.
“I’m always impressed by the actors and people in Hollywood I meet and who have a real outside awareness of people who live less fortunate than they do.
“I know Leo (DiCaprio) is a big movie star, but he puts so much energy to the environment and my good friend Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad) and his wife Lauren run an anti-bullying organisation for girls in high school.”
Edgerton, after a Golden Globe nomination for his drama Loving, appeared on track for Oscar and Screen Actors Guild nods but he missed out.
He says his work with the Hollows Foundation puts the snubs in perspective.
“I won’t lie and say we are not disappointed Loving was not more prominent in that conversation, but to be honest the awards circuit is punishing,” he said.
“It is a very self-serving and patting yourself on the back industry and I’m excited to do something unattached to my own ego.”