Olivia Colman, Idris Elba and Glenn Close Recite King Charles’ Speeches on Environment in New Short Film

King Charles’ enduring fight for the environment was infused with some star power Monday.

In a new short film launching RE:TV’s YouTube channel, Hollywood A-listers Olivia Colman, Idris Elba, Woody Harrelson and Glenn Close recite lines from the King’s speeches on the environment spanning more than five decades.

RE:TV, founded in 2020 by Charles while he was the Prince of Wales, has released more than 100 short films highlighting sustainability efforts around the world.

The film also features BBC presenter Danny Clarke, author Charlie Mackesy, documentary filmmaker-producer-environmental activist Jack Harries and climate activist Leah Thomas.

Included in the star-studded video are snippets from a landmark speech Charles gave in 1970 as a young prince to the Countryside Steering Committee for Wales, where the royal expressed concern over many of the environmental issues we face today, including conservation, pollution and plastic waste.

“One of the most basic problems is people,” BBC presenter Clarke recites from the speech, with Harrelson delivering the next line, “You inevitably come up against human nature, obstinacy.”

Marking the 50th anniversary of the speech in a video shared by the Royal Family on social media, King Charles reflected on how ahead of the curve he was at the time.

“I was considered rather dotty, to say the least, for even suggesting these things, rather like when I set up a reed-bed sewage treatment system at Highgrove — that was considered completely mad,” he said.

“Everything I suggested was completely potty, apparently.”

The film goes on to quote the King’s speeches from the North Sea Conference in 1987, the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in 2009, the COP21 Opening Session in 2015 and a particularly powerful moment from his 2020 address at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.

“Global warming, climate change, the devastating loss of biodiversity are the greatest threats that humanity has ever faced and one largely of our own creation,” Elba recites together with the original recording from the speech.

Meanwhile, King Charles’ environmental initiatives have extended far beyond his early “potty” initiatives at Highgrove. During his tenure as Prince of Wales, he launched an organic food line, a sustainable fashion line and even incorporated sustainability into his own life, including cutting down on his meat consumption and running his vintage Aston Martin on surplus wine and excess cheese whey.

Upon taking the throne, Charles has had to delegate much of his environmental work to Prince William. Yet, he continues to fold sustainability into his duties as King.

Most recently, he partnered with Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield on the Astra Carta, a space sustainability plan for humanity’s first moon settlement.

With the pressure on monarchs to stay politically neutral, the new short and YouTube channel provides yet another avenue for the King to stay in the fight.

Nowhere is that more evident than at the film’s conclusion, where a hopeful Charles, from RE:TV’s 2020 launch, delivers an important reminder that is as relevant today as it was three years ago:

“There is real hope, but we’ve just got to get our act together and we’ve got to remember that it’s the natural world that sustains us.”

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