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Today isn’t actually Day 1 of the strike. Actors have been on the picket lines in solidarity with writers since May 1, but today they hit the streets outside Netflix, Warner Bros., Disney, and elsewhere around town with their own mission, their own existential threats, and their own frustration with the system.
SAG-AFTRA began its strike against the studios at midnight on Friday, and the crowds and incessant honking horns were a reminder that even into the third month of the WGA strike, people are still pissed. As the first dual-union strike to hit Hollywood in over 60 years — yes, since Ronald Reagan was in charge of the guild — the incredible thing is that the messaging is the same now from the actors as it was from the writers over 70 days ago. Both writers and actors demand a living wage that keeps up with the times and a new business model built around streaming residuals that can keep people afloat and help them get healthcare as well as protection against the threat of artificial intelligence.
In fact, if it weren’t for the new set of picket signs or the much hotter weather, the average, non-industry observer might not have noticed a difference. But there was also a new star in town, SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher, who along with lead negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland did a tour of Netflix, Paramount, and Warner Bros. to greet striking SAG-AFTRA members. Fired up by her impassioned speech on Thursday, “The Nanny” star was mobbed everywhere she went, and picketers surrounded her with chants of one of her biggest lines from the press conference: “The jig is up.”
In speaking with IndieWire on Thursday after the press conference, Drescher acknowledged how gratified she felt to see such unity among actors and writers alike and why the bigger story is that actors are part of the labor force.
“We are such an important contributor to this industry. To even think that way, to try and squeeze us like they’re doing so disrespectfully, so dishonorably, and then do all these low-blow tactics to divert the fact that they’re the ogres in this and we’re the underdogs, trying to make me look bad or whatever, it’s crazy,” Drescher said. “Wake up. Look in the mirror. See what you’re doing. Build up a little bit of character and courage. Walk into the board room and say, these people are our partners. We’ve got to do right by them. Whatever things cost, we’ll have one less flying dragon. Let’s do what needs to be done to make this business model work as a collaborative art form, which is what it is, and what it used to be.”
Sean Astin, the “Rudy” and “Lord of the Rings” star who is one of the negotiating committee members for SAG-AFTRA, told IndieWire outside of the Warner Bros. lot how amazed he was at the unity he’s seen on display, including how miraculous it is that the SAG-AFTRA national board unanimously voted to approve today’s strike.
“Anybody who knows anything about SAG-AFTRA, because it’s a member-run union, there has been a lot of in-fighting over the last couple of decades. That is gone. We are in lockstep. We are as unified as a union has ever been,” Astin said. “That is a testament of how serious the issues are and how narrowly you can interpret them. It is what it is, and we need what we need.”
Astin described the mood the last couple of weeks in the negotiating room as having “a sinking feeling.” After agreeing to a 12-day extension following the initial contract’s June 30 deadline — one that came at a cost politically among members — negotiators felt duped by the studios, as though the only reason they wanted to extend was not to further talk in good faith but to buy more time to promote tentpole summer movies as though they were expecting a strike.
“When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time,” Astin said. “They came back with virtually nothing. And they were disrespectful. We’re volunteers, and we sat around for four weeks. And it’s basic human courtesy that was a little missing.”
The message put out by Drescher and the rest of the negotiating team has trickled down to the rank-and-file SAG-AFTRA members, some of whom spoke with IndieWire on the picket lines about their pain points. Numerous strikers mentioned streaming residuals checks they recently received for just pennies, and how this form of income they used to rely on has dried up to the point they can’t hit the minimum annual salary necessary — $26,000 — to qualify for the guild’s healthcare plan.
“That has been the most disheartening shift since the 2020 contract negotiations. Now it’s even more difficult to make the minimums to reach your healthcare, and residuals count even less and less for that,” “Schitt’s Creek” actor Dustin Milligan said. “To be able to string together enough jobs so you can afford to get sick, that’s just not happening for so many people, and it’s unfortunately tragic how that has caused ripple effects throughout the industry. There are people who have been doing this for years and years and years, senior citizens who can suddenly no longer afford the critical care they need because their healthcare has diminished or they’ve lost it, simply because of the shifts of what counts to our healthcare minimums and what doesn’t.”
“Most of our members struggle to meet their healthcare. And on the media they say, ‘Oh Beverly Hills and their mansions.’ No they’re not,” Astin said. “These are real people who have to have second or third jobs where they used to be able to have a career.”
The concerns about AI also loomed large, overshadowing other negotiation topics like self-tapes or gains for dancers, background actors, and stunt coordinators.
“The terminology is vague on purpose. How do you quantify likeness and compensation when the only term is likeness? That is a very, very broad term, and I think it’s intentional to essentially eradicate the labor pool, which is the actors,” “Harriet the Spy” star Vanessa Chester said. “That is very problematic. I think the executives at the top don’t understand creativity and view it as a bottom-line issue.”
But others recognized that the strike today isn’t just about Hollywood or about actors — it’s about the labor movement at large around the country, and they know that with actors on the picket lines who are a lot more visible to the masses than writers, people will take notice.
“The fact that this is something that we love to do, and this is for many of us a dream to be out here, the fact that we have to sacrifice making a livable wage, our health and our happiness and our mental health to be at the beck and call of the studios and a contract that is unfortunately devaluing us to the point that it is untenable to continue,” Milligan said. “That for me is, in a nutshell, a huge, gigantic nutshell, why I’m here, and why a lot of us are out here.”
“It’s a convergence of things that have come together and have made this a seminal moment historically, because we are not the only ones being marginalized and squeezed out of a livelihood by big business or being threatened by artificial intelligence,” Drescher said. “It is happening everywhere. I was in Santa Monica, and there was a box rolling around making deliveries by itself. It really saddened me. I thought, that used to be a person on a bicycle. What happened to that person? They were squeezed out of the money they were making doing an honest day’s wage. We’re living in a very awful time because it’s these very powerful corporations that aren’t really thinking about how their actions are impacting people.”
Additional reporting by Azwan Badruzaman.
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– Armessa Movie News