Thousands of actors sign letter declaring they’d ‘rather stay on strike than take a bad deal’
Thousands of striking actors, including a number of Hollywood stars, have signed an open letter reaffirming their commitment to the cause as negotiations continue and the walkout stretches into its 106th day.
Among the signatories of the letter published Thursday night were Daniel Dae Kim, Camila Cabello, Daveed Diggs, Debra Messing, Gina Rodriguez, Jon Hamm, Lena Dunham, LeVar Burton, Mark Ruffalo, Sarah Paulson and Pedro Pascal.
The studio CEOs and SAG-AFTRA had planned to meet for the second consecutive day in an effort to end the actors’ strike, now in its 104th day.
“Back in June, before we went on strike, a large group of members signed an open letter telling our leaders that we would rather go on strike than take a bad deal,” the letter reads.
“Now, more than 100 days into our strike, that is still true. As hard as this is, we would rather stay on strike than take a bad deal. We have not come all this way to cave now.”
SAG-AFTRA has approved a deal from the studios to end its historic strike. The actors were on strike for more than 100 days.
Reflecting internal tensions at the 160,000-member performers’ union, the missive proceeded to call out “a minority who are not willing to make temporary sacrifices for the greater good,” while declaring that many members of the guild — including the more than 3,600 who signed the letter — “are still standing in solidarity, ready to strike as long as it takes.”
“We have not gone without work, without pay, and walked picket lines for months just to give up on everything we’ve been fighting for.,” it reads. “We cannot and will not accept a contract that fails to address the vital and existential problems that we all need fixed.”
Representatives for SAG-AFTRA, and the alliance representing the major studios did not immediately respond Friday to requests for comment.
“I will not cave,” “The Nanny” star and SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher says in an interview, as the actors’ strike reaches 100 days. Talks with the major studios were suspended earlier this month.
Others who attached their names to the letter include Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Carrie Coon, Cynthia Nixon, Jamie Chung, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Maya Hawke, Wilson Cruz, John Leguizamo and Patti LuPone.
Around the same time the letter was released, SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating committee announced that it had delivered a counteroffer to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on Thursday after a long day of bargaining. The guild said it is scheduled to meet with the alliance again on Friday.
Talks resumed Tuesday after the previous round soured over streaming pay. The entertainment companies walked away from the table after the guild proposed an annual payment of about 57 cents for every streaming subscriber worldwide.
Studio heads argued that such a model would be unreasonable and cost the companies too much money, while guild leaders accused the AMPTP of bargaining in bad faith.
Though the AMPTP returned to the table Tuesday with a new offer it said was generous, the sides remained divided by the end of the session, according to sources familiar with the matter. The guild took a break on Wednesday to review the studios’ latest proposal before presenting its counteroffer to the AMPTP on Thursday.
In a year of labor action, music has became a consistent presence and pillar of morale for the writers, hotel workers, actors and other workers on the picket lines.
The open letter came out about a week after a group of A-list actors — including George Clooney, Emma Stone, Ben Affleck, Tyler Perry and Scarlett Johansson — met with SAG-AFTRA leaders in an effort to devise a strategy to end the strike. None of those actors signed the open letter released this week.
During the A-listers meeting, Clooney and others proposed that the guild lift the current $1-million cap on membership dues so that wealthier members could contribute more to the union and potentially ease the financial burden on working actors.
The stars also suggested shifting to a new residual payment model in which the lowest-billed cast members on a project — who might be less financially secure — get compensated first, while the marquee players get paid last.
In an Instagram video shared last week, SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher called the A-listers’ offer to raise their dues “extremely generous” but made clear to members that such a gesture would not “impact the contract that [the union is] striking over whatsoever.”
As for the proposed change to the residual model, Drescher said it didn’t “hold water,” but she thanked the movie stars for their “effort and desire to be supportive” all the same.
On Friday, strike captains encouraged guild members to show their support for Drescher by bringing heart-shaped plushies to a picket outside Amazon Studios in Culver City. (The “Nanny” alum has been known to bring a heart-shaped plush toy with a smiley face to the bargaining table during negotiations.)
“I will not cave and I will not let [the actors] down,” Drescher recently told The Times, “no matter what vitriol or intimidation tactics the companies choose to throw at me.”
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