Actors strike live updates: SAG-AFTRA will picket, prompting historic Hollywood shutdown
Hollywood actors are about to be off the job and on the picket line.
Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA), the union that represents American film and TV actors, is expected to announce plans for a strike at noon PDT on Thursday, a work stoppage that would essentially bring most movie and TV production worldwide to a halt. The announcement comes 12 hours after the contract between the union and the major studios expired without a new deal. Both sides had already extended talks by 12 days after their initial contract expired June 30.
After tense negotiations, talks collapsed Wednesday night, and the union’s negotiating committee unanimously recommended a vote by its national board to call a strike. Much of Hollywood has already shut down because of an ongoing writers strike that began May 2, but more productions would pause in an actors strike, from highly anticipated sequel films (“Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning – Part 2”) to new TV seasons (HBO’s “House of the Dragon”).
Here are the latest updates from SAG, the studios and major celebrities as the labor battle goes on.
Watch SAG-AFTRA press conference
The strike means that actors have to stop all of their work, including promoting their upcoming films and movies. But the stars of highly anticipated movies “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” both due in theaters July 21, were able to squeeze in a premiere before the strike was formally called. “Barbie” stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling walked the pink carpet in Los Angeles last weekend. And just hours before SAG announced the strike, Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy and Florence Pugh promoted “Oppenheimer” at a premiere in London.
The “Oppenheimer” actors were asked by reporters about the impending strike. “Nobody wants a work stoppage,” Damon told Deadline, “but if our leadership is saying that the deal isn’t fair, then we gotta hold strong till we get a deal that’s fair for working actors. It’s the difference between having healthcare and not for a lot of actors, and we’ve gotta do what’s right by them.”
Blunt said the cast would leave the premiere together if a strike was called. “We’re going to have to,” she told Deadline. “Oppenheimer” director Christopher Nolan introduced the screening of his film by saying the cast had indeed left the premiere to go “write their picket signs” and join the fight with the guilds.
Disney CEO Bob Iger didn’t mince words when appearing on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Thursday morning, saying writers’ and actors’ demands were unrealistic.
“It’s very disturbing to me,” he told host David Faber when asked about the WGA strike and impending SAG strike. “This is the worst time in the world to add to that disruption. I understand any labor organizations’ desire to work on the behalf of its members to get, you know, the most compensation and to be compensated fairly based on the value that they deliver. … There’s a level of expectation that they have that is just not realistic. And they are adding to a set of challenges that this business is already facing that is quite frankly very disruptive and dangerous.”
After the talks between SAG-AFTRA and the the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents the major Hollywood studios, collapsed at midnight Wednesday, SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating committee recommended to its board that it vote for a strike. The union said the outcome of that vote would be revealed at a press conference at noon PDT Thursday.
In a statement, the union’s negotiating committee said the studios remain “unwilling to offer a fair deal on the key issues that are essential to SAG-AFTRA members,” and blamed “intransigence and delay tactics” by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers for its unanimous recommendation. Actress Fran Drescher, the SAG-AFTRA’s president, said the studios’ “responses to the union’s most important proposals have been insulting and disrespectful of our massive contributions to this industry.”
For its part, the studio group shifted blame to actors for walking away from talks and said it had offered “historic” pay increases and other benefits. “This is the Union’s choice, not ours … rather than continuing tonegotiate, SAG-AFTRA has put us on a course that will deepen the financial hardship for thousands who depend on the industry for their livelihoods.”
The expected strike comes in the middle of a long WGA strike and after a month of contentious talks between SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP, and a 12-day extension of the existing contract. But the conversation around the negotiations became increasingly acrimonious during the 12-day extension. When a contract was not reached by midnight on Wednesday, and the negotiating committee recommended the board call for a strike, it became a foregone conclusion that actors would take a major labor action.
At stake for the actors are how much they get paid in a streaming-service-dominated industry and how artificial intelligence will be used in Hollywood as this technology radically changes our world. They want more money, regulated use of AI, and for their compensation to be based on how well their shows and movies perform on streaming services.
Yes, but not for some time. The last time any actors went on strike was in 2000, when commercial actors walked out for six months. Theatrical and TV actors were last on strike for just 14 hours in 1986, and they also went on strike for three months in 1980.
The last time actors and writers were on strike at the same time was in 1960, when Ronald Reagan was the president of SAG and Dwight Eisenhower was president.
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