High-profile film actors will fight alongside writers in New York and Los Angeles in what will be the biggest Hollywood industrial action in decades. Actors’ union members will take to the streets on Friday after their leaders voted unanimously on Thursday to go on strike over issues such as pay and the use of artificial intelligence to replace their jobs. The extended strike will shut down the few productions that have continued filming in the two months since screenwriters stopped work. Oscar and Emmy winners are now likely to be seen regularly picketing studios and corporate offices.
The decision affects the 160,000 members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). The protest, which gathered strength after two organizations merged in 2012, is bringing the industry closer to the abyss as hundreds of productions and companies lose their essential raw material: talent. The actors now join the Screenwriters, whose 11,500 members have been protesting for improved conditions since May 2nd. Only the directors reached an agreement with the studios, which prevented a simultaneous strike by the industry’s three main unions.
It is the first major strike by actors since 1980 and the first joint strike by actors and screenwriters in 63 years. The scale of the strike is unpredictable, but it is useful to refer to the 2008 writers’ strike, which lasted three months and had an economic impact of $2.5 billion, according to official estimates. The writers’ strike had already slowed, if not halted, the schedule for filming series and movies. With the actors leaving, productions that were still being shot are left without people on set. The strike also prevents artists from promoting their products. It’s not even known when (if ever) the Emmy Awards will take place, the nominations for which were announced on Wednesday: possible dates are September (which is now almost a possibility), November and January.
Many actors showed their solidarity at the writers’ picket, including Fran Drescher, SAG-AFTRA President and former The Nanny star. The union’s 65,000-strong cast of actors will now officially join them as fellow strikers.
When Drescher announced Thursday that union leaders would vote unanimously to go on strike, Drescher delivered a sharp rebuke to studios and streaming services.
“We had no choice. We are the victims here. “We are becoming victims of a very greedy creature,” said Drescher. “I am shocked at the way the people we have done business with are treating us. To be honest, I can hardly believe how far apart we are on so many things. How they claim poverty, that they lose money left and right when they give their CEOs hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Meredith Stiehm, president of the WGA, the screenwriters’ union, accompanied by Fran Drescher, president of SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, protests outside Paramount Studios on May 8, 2023. Chris Pizzallo (AP)
Studios the actors have worked with include Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Paramount, Disney, Sony, Warner, and Universal. The negotiations took place parallel to the writers’ strike and lasted until the last minute of July 12. In the early morning hours of this Wednesday, SAG announced that the negotiations had not led to any result. Drescher explained that these were made “in good faith” but that the employers’ suggestions were “offensive and disrespectful” given the “very important contributions to the industry” made by their interpreters.
According to the Motion Picture Association in January, the industry generates 2.4 million jobs and $186 billion in salaries through more than 122,000 companies. The two guilds have similar issues with studios and streaming services. They fear contracts will keep up with inflation, pay off balances in the streaming age, and build safeguards against the use of artificial intelligence that mimics their work in movies and TV shows.
The Actors’ Union is considered one of the most powerful groups in Hollywood. When the joint writers’ and actors’ strike broke out in 1960, Ronald Reagan was President of the SAG. The position prepared him for his political career and in 1967 he became Governor of California. SAG, which turned 90 this week, brings together such powerful names in the industry as Meryl Streep, Ben Affleck, Charlize Theron, David Duchovny, Ben Stiller and Jennifer Lawrence, but also thousands of anonymous non-star actors and most of them not have a job at the time.
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