Actors picketed outside studio headquarters from California to New York on Friday as film and television production ground to a halt in Hollywood’s worst strike in decades.
Hundreds of strikers marched with placards at the Netflix building on Los Angeles’ famous Sunset Boulevard, as well as the Disney, Paramount, Warner and Amazon campuses, with passing drivers honking their horns in support.
In New York, Jason Sudeikis and Susan Sarandon were among the A-listers who turned out for protests, sparked by studio owners’ refusal to meet actors’ demands for better pay and job security.
“The studios are tone-deaf and greedy, and they need to wake up – because we’re the ones who made them rich,” Titanic star Frances Fisher told JEE News as she marched outside Paramount Pictures. .
Members of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) joined writers who have been on strike for weeks, triggering the first industry walkout in 63 years and effectively shutting down Hollywood.
Friends co-creator Marta Kaufman said, “We’ve been out here for almost 80 days…the fact that SAG-AFTRA gave so much energy, and incredible solidarity.”
The studios “look like the devil,” he told JEE News on a picket line outside Netflix.
The actors officially went on strike at midnight on Thursday after negotiations to reach a new contract with production studios ended without an agreement.
Union demands have focused on declining pay in the streaming era and the threat posed by artificial intelligence.
“We’re in it for the long haul, but this is a historic moment,” said Vera Charney, 44, who has starred in The Americans and For All Mankind.
“It’s time to close the contracts that are serving future generations of actors, just like they did in the 1960s.
Blockbusters delayed?
Protesters on both coasts came out in force for Friday’s protests.
In Manhattan, actress Casey Cloran, 36, told JEE News that actors are “just trying to make a minimum wage, a living wage in New York City.
“We want to be able to live where we work,” he said.
But for now, “Double Strike” has essentially shut down all American productions, with limited exceptions such as reality and game shows.
TV shows that continued to shoot during the writer’s strike, such as the Star Wars series Endor, would be shut down.
Ongoing production on films including superhero flick Deadpool 3 and historical epic sequel Gladiator 2 were also expected to shut down, and their release dates could be pushed back if the industrial action continues.
Actors are now banned from promoting some of the biggest films of the year, at the height of the summer blockbuster season.
The A-list cast of Universal’s Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s wartime biopic, walked out of its London premiere on Thursday.
SAG-AFTRA represents everyone from megastars like Tom Cruise to day players who play small roles in television series.
Top stars enjoy individual contracts with studios that exceed the union minimums at the heart of the actors’ strike, but their presence on picket lines in coming weeks could help draw attention to the dispute. can
“We’re part of an industry that has a lot of people who are up front, so the extra PR would be helpful,” said Tien Tran, star of the sitcom How I Met Your Father, who was picketing outside the Paramount.
‘Consent’
The last time the actors’ union went on strike in 1980, it lasted more than three months, over the advent of pay television and home video.
This time, the union says that streaming has “severely eroded” actors’ pay and warned that artificial intelligence is “an existential threat”.
Ezra Knight, SAG-AFTRA New York local president, said AI “threatens to displace real actors from the creative space.”
Studios “want to hold on to their right to take my likeness in the same production… and use that likeness forever,” he warned.
“We want boundaries for that, we want consent and to be able to allow for that.”
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) said it had offered big pay rises to actors and a “tremendous” AI proposal.
