Actors Guild joins Hollywood's largest strike since 1960
Most film and television productions have come to a halt. Workers demand better working conditions and want to limit the use of artificial intelligence to ensure they will not be digitally replaced.
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:
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).
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":
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.