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\"But that’s the truth, and it’s not always a sexy enough headline to get people to click in reporting on the truth,\" she added. \"I represent the reality of media, unfortunately.\"

Michael K. Williams, who plays Jackson, one of the homeless patrons staging the sit-in at the library, echoed the desire to humanize the homeless.

\"These people are human beings,\" he said. \"The biggest thing that you can give a homeless person, if you see them in the street, from my opinion, is a pair of socks and a smile and look them in their eye and genuinely ask them 'What’s your name?' and 'How’s your day going?'\"

\"Just ask them. Just acknowledge them. Don’t just throw money in their cup,\" he added. \"That was my experience after making this and taking this journey with Emilio and the rest of the cast members. I don’t just walk by and act like they’re not there or they belong there. And I don’t just throw money in the cup to appease my — whatever the hell that’s appeasing.\"

\"Sometimes just getting in their eye level and acknowledging them and saying hello — it's the biggest thing you can do,\" he said.

\"PHOTO:
Universal Pictures
PHOTO: Michael Kenneth Williams as Jackson in the 2019 film, "The Public."
>

The story was \"extremely personal\" for Williams while he was shooting the film, as he had someone very close to him affected by homelessness.

\"They would come to my home, and you know, at a certain time they had to meet curfew because they would lose their bed. They’d have to go back,\" he said. \"That was my relationship; that was this person’s reality at the time when I was filming. It was a humbling chance to jump at the opportunity to humanize my family member.\"

Baldwin, who plays Detective Bill Ramsted, a character working to shut down the sit-in in the library, said that the film will show people that these safe, warm spaces are invaluable for the homeless.

\"The nerve I think [Estevez] touched on is that we’ve completely underestimated the importance of libraries in communities, even in the digital age where you think everybody's home with a device in their hand. A lot of people don’t have that,\" he said. \"They go to the library in order to enrich themselves and what happens there is more important than we ever realized.\"

\"The Public\" hits theaters April 5.

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