Hollywood Is Facing the Prospect of Actors Joining Writers on Strike
The actors’ union SAG-AFTRA enters negotiations with studios today over a new contract. Members just returned a 97.91 percent vote in favor of authorizing a strike — meaning striking film and TV writers could soon be joined on the picket line by actors.
SAG-AFTRA members and others supporting a WGA picket line outside NBCUniversal headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York, on May 23, 2023. (Stephanie Keith / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
It was never a sure thing that the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) would hold a strike authorization vote, a move that would grant the union’s board of directors the ability to call a strike should negotiations with the studios over a new three-year contract fall apart. The possibility has been a frequent topic of discussion on Writers Guild of America (WGA) picket lines since the writers walked off the job on May 2, but there were reasons for uncertainty.
In comments made to Deadline at a Paramount Pictures WGA picket line last month, SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher seemed to downplay the similarities of the issues facing writers and actors, stating, “I don’t think that what’s very important to writers . . . is the kind of stuff that we’re going after.”
SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher on a possible actors strike: “It’s a very big, complicated conversation,” she tells Deadline outside Paramount Pictures in LA today #WritersStrike pic.twitter.com/lK3QXnY69b
— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) May 9, 2023
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