Actors are joining screenwriters in what is now Hollywood's biggest strike since 1960. Some 160,000 actors - who are members of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) - are joining the historic entertainment strike initially staged by the Screenwriters Guild in early May.
Workers are calling for higher wages, better working conditions and limiting the use of artificial intelligence to ensure that actors will not be digitally replaced with holograms. Fran Drescher, president of SAG, stated:
Not only members of this union but also people working in other industries that service the people that work in this industry. We had no choice. We are the victims here. We are being victimized by a very greedy entity (...) Companies say they lose money when they make billions. If we don't stand tall right now, we are all going to be in trouble. We are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines and big business.
The strike will prevent most film and television productions from resuming. The promotion of new releases will also be stopped. Protests will take place around the headquarters of major production companies in California: Netflix, Paramount, Warner Bros and Disney, among others.
Another major Hollywood group, the Directors Union, announced in June that it would not join the strike as a result of successful negotiations with the industry's major companies.
The double strike and the actors supporting it
The news has already had repercussions in the guild. Some of the stars of Oppenheimer, including Matt Damon, Emily Blunt and Cillian Murphy, walked out of the premiere in London (UK).
Cillian Murphy and the cast of Oppenheimer walked out of the film’s London premiere as part of a strike that’s halted Hollywood productions for the first time in 63 years.
Read more: https://t.co/YHrfql3LQS pic.twitter.com/NkmOXyBJ5X
— SBS News (@SBSNews) July 14, 2023
Christopher Nolan - the film's director - said that he supported the actors in their strike and added that his main actors were leaving the premiere because "they were going to write their banners":
We have to acknowledge, you've seen them here earlier on the red carpet. Unfortunately, they are off to write their picket signs for what we believe to be an imminent strike by SAG, joining one of my guilds, the Writers' Guild, in the struggle for fair wages for working members of the union. And we support them.
Christopher Nolan says the cast of #Oppenheimer left the premiere to ‘go and write their pickets’ and join the strike pic.twitter.com/rc2SaSxcfk
— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) July 13, 2023
Hollywood has not experienced such a significant strike in 60 years. In 1960, both unions -actors and screenwriters- joined forces to seek better working conditions. On the other hand, the last actors-only strike took place in 1980.
