On Friday morning, hours into the first commercial actors strike in 23 years, George Clooney has become the latest A-lister to voice his support for the walkout.
In a statement provided to Deadline, Clooney said that “actors and writers in large numbers have lost their ability to make a living.” As actors and writers strike together for the first time since 1960, Clooney added, “This is an inflection point in our industry. For our industry to survive that has to change. For actors, that journey starts now.”
Wednesday marked a historic turning point for Hollywood’s labor battle. Throughout the week, anticipation loomed as more than 100,000 actors waited for confirmation that they’d be going on strike. “I see a strike in my crystal ball,” Jamie Lee Curtis wrote Wednesday on Instagram, in her final social media post promoting Disney’s upcoming Haunted Mansion. “The souls of ghosts of performers long past urging us in this modern moment to fight for our rights to exist as creators.”
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Now that the strike has been confirmed, more and more actors are speaking out.
“The writing is on the wall,” Law & Order: Criminal Intent actor Vincent D’Onofrio wrote on Twitter earlier this week as negotiations were still happening. “...Eyes are on us let’s finally be the Union we should have always been.” Without actors and writers, he added, “there are no productions.”
To make things even more chaotic, the Emmys announced this year’s nominations Wednesday morning—while SAG-AFTRA was approaching its midnight contract-negotiation deadline with Hollywood’s major film studios. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter after receiving her second nomination for best actress in a comedy, Abbott Elementary star Sheryl Lee Ralph said that actors are “fighting for our art.”
Ralph emphasized to THR that most working actors aren’t millionaire A-listers, or even series regulars who make “good money.” (For perspective, SAG-AFTRA represents about 160,000 members.) “We’re talking about plain, old, ordinary, working class people who in 40 years have not gotten a cost of living raise,” the actress said. “... And somehow they’re making people who are just fighting to live look like the bad guys.”
Several celebrities shared their support for the strike with Vanity Fair in a piece published Thursday. “Technology has changed so much about the industry in the last 10 years, it feels like it’s absolutely time,” Daniel Radcliffe told VF. Aunjanue Ellis added, “It really is the haves versus the have-nots, and just the incredible imbalance between folks who have most of the money and folks who don’t have the money at all.”
On Thursday afternoon, after SAG-AFTRA’s National Board held a final vote, the union’s president, Fran Drescher, confirmed the strike in a fiery speech. “We are being victimized by a very greedy entity,” Drescher said. “... I cannot believe how far apart we are on so many things, how they plead poverty while giving millions of dollars to their CEOs. Shame on them! They are on the wrong side of history.”
Drescher’s words seemed to resonate with members including Kim Cattrall, Bob Odenkirk, Jessica Chastain, Ben Stiller, Josh Gad, and John Cusack, who have shared clips, quotes, and words of approval. “Sending love to all my fellow actors and writers,” Keke Palmer tweeted that afternoon. “Praying that this is resolved swiftly and we all come out feeling empowered! Families have to be fed but people have to and deserved be respected for their work as well.”
“The @sagaftra strike has at last arrived,” And Just Like That actress and director Cynthia Nixon tweeted Thursday. “I am proud to be standing tall with the @WGAWest and @WGAEast as actors and writers together demand a fair share of the record-breaking profits the studios have been reaping from our labor for far too long. We will win this!”
Actors also walked out of premiere events for both Barbie and Oppenheimer on Thursday, where, earlier, stars including Margot Robbie, Emily Blunt, and Matt Damon been discussing the impending walkout with reporters. And by Friday morning, photos had already begun to emerge of Drescher and her fellow actors joining the WGA on the picket line. Among the celebrities picketing Friday, according to The Independent, was Susan Sarandon, who said, “If we stick together, we have power.”
