In the essential movement against Donald Trump, the role of most actors should be akin to the role of Iain Duncan Smith in a Tory general election campaign. I’m not precisely sure what the Conservatives do with Duncan Smith for these periods – I assume they simply render him to some electoral blacksite where he can repeatedly lose at Connect 4 to Chris Grayling. The point is: they know. And being affectless enough to know these things helps them win. Duncan Smith may be a big hit with the section of the support base you can already count on anyway, but he is not going to be stealing hearts in a three-way marginal. End of.

And so to the impending Baftas. Like me, you are probably striking off the days until next week’s ceremony, when we will finally be able to discover what actors getting prizes think about Trump. Don’t worry if you feel you haven’t got to the bottom of it by the end of the Baftas – two weeks after that, it’ll be the Oscars.

This is an awards one-two that casts the moviegoing public as The Dude in that scene from The Big Lebowski, where an intruder is shoving The Dude’s head down his toilet while screaming: “Where’s the money, Lebowski?” He’s finally allowed up for a breath, as his tormentor screams: “Where’s the fucking money, shithead?” “It’s down there somewhere,” he drawls, “Let me take another look.” The Oscars is that second look.

The sheer potential number of off-piste acceptance speeches this year is reportedly a matter of concern for the organisers. Back in the day, the biggest headache for Bafta timekeeping was Russell Crowe. In 2002, when he won for A Beautiful Mind, Russell opted to read out a lengthy piece of verse on receipt of his award. Learning that viewers at home had not seen the full opus, owing to it being time for the News at Ten or whatever, Crowe pinned the show’s TV director to the wall at the afterparty and inquired: “Who on earth had the fucking audacity to take out the Best Actor’s poem? You piece of shit – I’ll make sure you never work in Hollywood!” Incidentally, never, ever even attempt to argue with Lost in Showbiz (or indeed Crowe) that “The Best Actor’s Poem” is not a thing. It may have lain dormant since that night, but it is somewhere out there, gathering strength – and it will rise again.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Madonna at the Women’s March in Washington. Photograph: Jose Luis Magana/AP

For now, we have the Best Actor’s Refutation of a Presidential Tweet to look forward to. And many times. Before we go any further I should probably say I think it’s genuinely great that entertainers are exercised about Trump and want to be part of efforts to resist his toxic programme and moral abuses. All those famous women who put on a hat and marched alongside civilians at the various women’s marches? Yes please. But those tempted to be more than one face in a few hundred thousand, and to take the microphone and mention they had thought about blowing up the White House, as Madonna did … Well, it’s a little harder to believe they are really helping. Clearly they mean to – it’s just that they are either hardwired to get this stuff wrong, or come with too much baggage by virtue of their fame.

To watch Madonna shout “Welcome to the revolution of love!” at Washington’s Women’s March was to wonder a number of things. 1. Did I just stumble into your arena tour? 2. Do you realise that your blow-up joke is the clip that will be seized upon by Trump himself and used to characterise women’s resistance entirely? As a celebrity himself, Trump understands how to exploit the vulnerabilities of celebrity better than any politician before him. 3. Do you also see the clip will be manna to all the Trump media poodles too thick to formulate a counter argument – but who nonetheless reach audiences you might want to persuade. Do you see it will be repeatedly amplified and miscast until the march itself is (however unjustly) diminished by it in the eyes of those you need to persuade? Because that is what happened. And it will happen next time too.

Award recipients: it’s worth at least considering the possibility that endless, highly publicised black-tie celebrity diatribes against Trump do not change a single opinion in the way that other voices might. Furthermore – and much more dangerously – they may calcify the very electoral mindset to which his success is credited. It is up to you how entirely you buy into the theory that the rise in rightwing populism is down to elites. But make like the Tories and remember: it is easier for IDS to pass through the eye of Sheffield Central than it is for stars not to be a liability in this instance.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Meryl Streep at the Golden Globe awards in January. Photograph: EPA

That said, a select few are up to the task. If you’re one of the 63 movie actors planning to make an anti-Trump speech during this awards season, Meryl should probably be your benchmark. If you are as good as Meryl at both acting and having the intelligence to laser in on the easiest-to-universalise incident of repulsive Trump bigotry, while not even naming him … then go right ahead. Otherwise, consider what we’ll call “the new radical” – simply accepting your prize, thanking the relevant people, and being cheerily on your way.

Incidentally, if director Asghar Farhadi wins the Oscar for best foreign-language film, there will be no acceptance protest, because as an Iranian, he is now banned from travelling to the US. No speech will be by far the most eloquent speech of all. In contrast – and with respect for his past achievements – what did the spectacle of Bob Geldof bellowing into a loud hailer on the Thames during the referendum campaign achieve (apart from contributing to easily my most enjoyable hilarious day on the trail)? Is it just possible to conceive that it didn’t do the business for remain?

For anyone who genuinely wants to do the business against Trump, this is worth bearing dispassionately in mind. It’s war, baby – and my personal dream would be for the organisers of the Baftas to cover the foyer in alarmist retro posters reading, “Do Not Assist the Enemy”. Or, failing that, more cordial ones: “Warning: Your Acceptance Speech May Test Poorly in West Virginia.”