Who can forget Matthew Modine wrestling in Vision Quest, grappling with war in Full Metal Jacket, leading the charge against evil in Dark Knight Rises, learning to fly in Birdy, or even kissing Michelle Pfeiffer in Married to the Mob?
We can’t.
What you may not know is that Modine, a Weizmann Advocate for Curiosity, is also an outspoken proponent of green technology, an avid cyclist, and head of the Bicycle for a Day project which encourages healthy, sustainable, and affordable transportation.
What first sparked his scientific curiosity?
“On July 20, 1969, I became a lover of the impossible,” Modine told The Curiosity Review. “I became a scientist, a humanist, an explorer of the universe, an environmentalist. This image of our home was taken by the Apollo 11 astronauts. The image altered my mind and my consciousness. It allowed me to look upon life, and its brevity, as if with a new set of eyes. If I needed proof of actual miracles, I needed only to think of this image and acknowledge the many forms of life on our planet. How precious our home is! We exist in a universe filled with billions of galaxies, filled with billions and billions of stars. All this, surrounded by an unimaginable emptiness! For me, there is nothing more humbling than looking at this photograph. We discovered the earth when we went to the moon. As if we looked at the earth from the wrong end of a telescope. Small. Delicate. Trapped in the gravitational pull of a star. This image should be the clarion call for human cooperation, peace, and oneness. A portrait of love and forgiveness.”
