Actors Picket From Coast to Coast as Strike Gets Underway

It was 10 a.m., adoring union members had already roughly mobbed their president, Fran Drescher, and the group was rising by the minute.

Outside Netflix workplaces in Hollywood, a festive, celebratory temper had taken over the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Van Ness Avenue. It was a employees’ strike, to make certain. But it felt a little bit like a summer time Friday road social gathering — one with a couple of well-known visitors.

“We’re told that we should just be so grateful to get to do what we love to do — but not being compensated, not being protected while they are profiting off of our work,” mentioned Amanda Crew from HBO’s “Silicon Valley,” who walked the picket line with Dustin Milligan from “Schitt’s Creek.”

“That’s the myth of the actor: You’re doing art so you should just be so grateful because you’re living your dream. Why? Do we do that to doctors? We bring so much joy to people by entertaining them,” Crew added.

It was the primary of what might be many days of marching for actors, who picketed at places throughout the nation. They chanted, “Actors and writers unite!” as they marched alongside a brief block in Times Square the place Paramount conducts enterprise; they handed out bottles of chilly water and cans of La Croix exterior 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan; they usually bounced their picket indicators to the sounds of Jay-Z’s “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” because it blared from a speaker in Hollywood.

A day earlier, the Hollywood actors’ union, often called SAG-AFTRA, accredited a strike for the primary time in 43 years, becoming a member of forces with writers, who walked out greater than 70 days in the past.

“There’s a renewed sense of excitement and solidarity,” mentioned Alicia Carroll, a strike captain for the Writers Guild of America. “Writers have been out here for upwards of 70 days. It’s been a while and it’s hot. People are tired. So this is a confidence boost that we’re not alone in the industry in terms of issues.”

The actors and writers have been unable to comply with new contracts with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents main studios and streamers. Pay is a central challenge, however the negotiations round compensation have been difficult by the emergence of streaming providers and the rise of synthetic intelligence.

Actors, together with Ms. Drescher, the president of the actors’ union, have solid the second as an inflection level, arguing that all the enterprise mannequin for the $134 billion American film and tv enterprise has modified. They say their new contract must account for these modifications with varied guardrails and protections, together with elevated residual funds (a sort of royalty) from streaming providers. They are additionally frightened about how A.I. might be used to duplicate their work: scripts within the case of writers and digital replicas of their likenesses for actors.

Hollywood firms have insisted that they labored in good religion to achieve an inexpensive deal at what has additionally been a troublesome time for an trade that has been upended by streaming and remains to be coping with the lingering results of the pandemic.

“The union has regrettably chosen a path that will lead to financial hardship for countless thousands of people who depend on the industry,” the studio alliance mentioned in an announcement after SAG-AFTRA introduced the strike.

On Friday, writers mentioned they have been heartened to be joined on the picket traces by actors, a lot of whom have been marching with them for months within the black-and-yellow T-shirts which have turn into one thing of a uniform. It is the primary time since 1960 that actors and screenwriters have been on strike on the similar time.

WGA leaders have shared picket line recommendation: Bring loads of sunscreen and set a timer to reapply, be careful for site visitors. But some actors have been already veterans.

“I have not been to a picket without SAG-AFTRA members there. Sometimes they have even outnumbered us here in the east,” mentioned Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, a vp of the Writers Guild of America, East. “They have been our stalwart supporters and comrades, and we intend to reciprocate.”

“Suddenly,” she added, “the sleeping giant has awaked.”

An animated Ms. Drescher, in a white SAG-AFTRA cap with the phrases “negotiating committee,” arrived to an exuberant crowd that wrapped themselves round her when she visited the picket traces in entrance of the Netflix workplaces in Los Angeles.

“I’m not really here for me as much as the 99.9 percent of the membership who are working people who are just trying to make a living to put food on the table, pay rent and get their kids off to school,” she mentioned. “They are the ones that are being squeezed out of their livelihood, and it’s just pathetic.”

Shara Ashley Zeiger, an actor, introduced her 2-year-old, Lily, to the picket in entrance of NBC’s workplaces in New York. An indication protruded from her daughter’s stroller. Lily performed along with her meals — and a tambourine.

“The effects of this deal directly affect my daughter and my family,” Ms. Zeiger mentioned.

She added: “I had had a role on a project that was on a streamer, and their deal was they didn’t have to pay me residuals for two years. And it was in the middle of the pandemic.”