George Clooney offers some thoughts on the actors strike
George Clooney is among the high-profile stars throwing support behind the Hollywood writers and actors currently on strike
Aux News George Clooney
The SAG-AFTRA strike officially began on July 14. It’s the first time Hollywood’s actors and writers have been on a dual strike since 1960, when Ronald Reagan was president of the Screen Actors Guild. The entertainment landscape now couldn’t look more different, and the stakes now may be higher than ever—which is bringing today’s Hollywood leaders to the forefront, like one Mr. George Clooney.
During what was described as “early hours LA time,” Clooney issued a statement to Deadline that “actors and writers in large numbers have lost their ability to make a living.” Echoing a letter with hundreds of high-profile signatories issued shortly before the strike, Clooney said, “This is an inflection point in our industry. For our industry to survive that has to change. For actors, that journey starts now.”
Many other actors have weighed in on the possibility of a strike, including Clooney’s Ocean’s Eleven co-star Matt Damon. Damon, who shortly after speaking with Deadline left the premiere of his new film Oppenheimer as part of the strike, acknowledged the implications of shutting down the industry and the impact it will have on workers everywhere. However, he said, “If our leadership is saying that the deal isn’t fair, then we gotta hold strong until 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 gotta do what’s right by them.”
SAG-AFTRA leadership certainly did call out the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) for presenting an unfair deal. In a press conference to announce the strike, current SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher gave a fiery speech condemning the studios and streamers. “We stand in solidarity, in unprecedented unity. Our union and our sister unions and the unions around the world are standing by us, as well as other labor unions, because at some point the jig is up,” she said. “You cannot keep being dwindled and marginalized and disrespected and dishonored. The entire business model has been changed by streaming, digital, AI. This is a moment of history that is a moment of truth. If we don’t stand tall right now, we are all going to be in trouble.”
As Damon and Clooney both noted, it’s not the stars in their tax bracket who most need to be protected by union action. It’s the everyday working actors who make up the majority of SAG-AFTRA who are at greater risk of the existential threats of a changing industry. “I’ve had people even in the industry, like makeup artists, or people who don’t really understand how actors are paid, ask me, ‘Why do actors have to strike? Especially if you’re on a show, you probably get paid so much!’” Richa Moorjani of Never Have I Ever recently told The A.V. Club. “What people don’t understand is that the majority of the Screen Actors Guild actors are the actors who are doing … one guest star appearance, you know, recurring characters. What I was before Never Have I Ever. And the majority of those actors don’t make enough—for the most part, do not make enough in one year to get health insurance, let alone make a decent living.” Let the fight for a fair deal commence.
48 Comments
Question: Does SAG-AFTRA include the hundreds of support staff who will now be unemployed?I have zero sympathy for anyone who chooses to go into entertainment as a career. There are more talented actors at your local theater than some of the people in SAG-AFTRA.
Nobody cares.
You do.
I actually don’t care about yet another dick pretend to give a shit about one kind of working person in order to shit on another kind of working person. It’s common and fucking boring.
To say nothing of the many different charity funds that all of these organizations are promoting to help the below the line folks. They KNOW that this hurts the support staff. Every laborer in every strike knows how much their strike can and often does fuck up the lives of the people who rely on them. Pretending otherwise is just licking the jackboots of the corporate Cthulus who make these strikes necessary.(I don’t know how an Old One uses footwear. It’s a bad mixed metaphor, I know.)
There are hundreds of support staff that are already unemployed. Instead of negotiating in good faith, studios slowed down new projects because they anticipated that the WGA would likely go on strike. SAG-AFTRA isn’t the villain in this story. It’s the studios that would rather cut their own noses to spite their faces by not fairly compensating their workers.I have no idea what point you’re trying to make with your second paragraph. You don’t have sympathy for people who choose to enter the entertainment industry because there are more talented actors at your local theater than some people in SAG-AFTRA? Should livable wages be reserved for those who demonstrate talent, or do none of them deserve sympathy because the union lets in people you view as untalented? Do you not watch anything produced by the entertainment industry? What are you trying to say?
It’s the same dumb logic of Twitter Blue Checks going: “If you were a better writer, you would get paid adequately.” These numbnuts really believe that a radical free market makes the best ideas and products rise to the top, even if they’re shown the opposite daily by the capitalist hellscape we’re living in.
Guess Flash was the best idea and product by that logic…
It’s willful ignorance, although “If you were a better writer, you would get paid adequately” at least has a consistent internal logic; it’s just completely divorced from reality. I have no idea what “there are more talented actors at your local theater” is supposed to mean.
It also assumes that the only people entitled to a living wage are the top 5-10% who can grind it out and everyone else deserves to be poor. This kind of thinking is very short sighted and a good recipe for negative social upheaval. These people hate socialist uprisings but don’t stop to think these don’t happen because the peasants are greedy and lazy, they happen because huge portions of the population have so little opportunity there’s literally no incentive to “play the game”.
https://www.wrapbook.com/blog/essential-guide-sag-rates#:~:text=SAG%20LOW%20BUDGET%20AGREEMENT,-The%20SAG%20Low&text=Under%20this%20contract%2C%20actors%20must,as%20with%20most%20SAG%20agreements.The minimum daily rate for an SAG actor is $216/day (which is for ULTRA LOW BUDGET movies). One episode television performers make $1082/day.None of these people should be struggling. These are far above livable wages. Do your research.
Do you think actors are working Monday through Friday every week? Is your grasp of the situation really that poor? This is an embarrassing level of ignorance.
This person is literally Bobby Hill
Except Bobby Hill is actually a good-hearted kid. He’s stupid, but good-hearted. Not a big old dick like our friend OP here.
I’m sure that sounds like a lot of money to you. What you’re not taking into account is that these actors aren’t working every day. The actor making the minimum is probably a day player. Go pick a random day playing actor, look at their IMDb, and see how many gigs they got in one year. Actors are also constantly going on auditions, which aren’t compensated. They have to pay for things like headshots out of pocket. And they have to work a certain amount of hours a year to be eligible for health insurance; otherwise, that’s another out-of-pocket cost. If they have an agent (and you don’t have to be ridiculously successful to get one), they have to pay the agent. It sounds like your research stopped exactly when you thought you had enough to make your point.And I still have no idea what your comment about local theater actors was supposed to mean. Fuck all that other noise; let’s get down to the important shit.
The cunt is also not talking *at all* about the most horrifying part, which is the industry plan to scan background actors and use their image *in motherfucking perpetuity*.
Ok, Mr. I-Did-Eight-Seconds-Of-Research, do you actually think all those actors who are making $1082 are working every day? Because they’re not.
Literally no actor, not even the biggest stars on the biggest shows, works every day. Guest stars on a show might work three or four days, maybe. Plenty of those roles are one day, because (guess what) producers try to keep all the guest stars scenes to one day and minimize pay per actor as much as possible.
Even incredibly talented actors often only “work” a few days a month- ie they are paid to appear for rehearsal, a fitting, or on set. The rest of the time, they’re auditioning (all completely unpaid), taking classes (that they pay for out of pocket), or working some other job to make ends meet. On top of that, they’re paying agency fees, shelling out money for headshots… and now, they’re largely expected to put together their own in-house studios to perform taped auditions.Oh, and those SAG Ultra-Low Budget movies? Those shoots tend to be 10 days or so, often 12 hour days or more. Crazy, hectic shoots on films that are made for under the ULB cap of $250,000 (and often far less than that). Even if they’re on every day of the shoot, you’re talking a little north of $2000 for an entire film shoot. If you somehow managed to line up 25 movies a year in a row (which would never happen, schedules don’t allow for it), you’d be making $50K before taxes, agency fees, etc. I don’t know where you’re living, but 50K doesn’t go as far as it used to in most places, let alone LA, NY, or other big cities (which are virtually the only places you can have a functioning career as an actor).
Stupid man says stupid thing, pointlessly, and is appropriately clowned.
Lmao how many guest appearances do you think these people are doing?
Lotta shouldas for a cunt.
Holy shit you’re an idiot
Sure, but how many days a year do they work? I highly doubt that a struggling actor is making $250/day for 300 days a year.
Do better research further than just scratching the surface. Average salary$40,000 per yearhttps://www.indeed.com/cmp/Sag—aftra/salaries/Actor
https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/actor/salaryThe median actor salary is less than $50,000 a year.
That’s the minimum rate for a principal actor. Your own source makes it clear that the vast majority of working actors make far less. SAG-AFTRA’s numbers say most don’t make enough to qualify for health insurance.
“The minimum daily rate for an SAG actor is $216/day (which is for ULTRA LOW BUDGET movies). One episode television performers make $1082/day.”Except they might work one day every three or four months.
Shit, there’s a good chance that some of the “more talented” actors in your local theater *are in* SAG-AFTRA.
You nailed it. The SAG-AFTRA’s are going on strike because of the ‘local theater actors who are in SAG-AFTRA. It’s their livelihoods that are being hurt. It’s the ‘working actor’, which are the majority of those in SAG-AFTRA, that are being affected by the studio greed.
I’m a support staff.We all support the strikes.Go fuck yourself.
Kindly go fuck yourself.
Happy? Is that what you came here for? Do you get a troll cookie now?
Oh shut up you fucking stain of troll diarrhea. Nobody gives a shit what you think.
This is classic concern trolling. Pretending to care about workers who you don’t actually give a crap about just so you can performatively dunk on popular actors.
Answer: You’re a cunt.
It’s a weird flex to publicly declare your lack of empathy. Hey, everybody, I’m an asshole! Well thanks for sharing.
And some (probably many) of those people working local theater are able to do it because they get enough roles to have a SAG card (and associated benefits) to make acting work as a profession.
Looks like we got some Studio plants here! Maybe don’t blame the actors for these people being unemployed but the awful studio heads.
Glad you cleared that up. Everyone can safely ignore you now.So anyway, WAY TO GO STRIKE TEAM! Stick-it to the bastards!
“I have zero sympathy for anyone who chooses to go into entertainment as a career”I mean…do you consume entertainment? Do you watch movies and read books and watch plays and watch TV shows? If you do, I don’t understand this attitude. You enjoy what they make, but think they shouldn’t be paid for making it? The “support staff” you mention also chose entertainment as a career. Do you have empathy for them either?
Did you really just say you don’t care about the people who create your entertainment on an entertainment website? Thinking must not be your strong suit.
Its quicker to list the actors not on the side of the strike
I bet we can probably guess who would be on that list. Kevin Sorbo, Deuce Bigalow, Angelina Jolie’s dad…
Sadly, I can see all of those dicks actually being PRO strike just because they can’t see past their own noses. Threaten THEIR wallets? No, sir! Threaten the wallet of the single mother down the street? Well, fuck her, she shouldn’t have gotten pregnant.
“Fortune favors the brave.” – Matt Damon
I know they’re a reliably consistent source of newsbites about the strikes but I strongly urge the AV Club writers to NOT link to anything from the AMPTP-backed trade mags. They are dissembling fucking dickbag liar pieces of moldy old dogshit, to be very eloquent about it.
Seems like if they’re just going to be grabbing newsbites from trades and Twitter, AVC writers should be allowed to live anywhere, even somewhere as far flung as Chicago…
I was initially not on board for that criticism because it made sense to me to locate the entertainment writers in the main hub of the industry. But you’re right. It really doesn’t seem like geography has made the kind of difference it should have on paper.(Although I still don’t understand why it fucking matters that it’s Chicago. I’m not saying you’re pushing that narrative but you DO mention the city specifically and I recall a lot of bitching from AVClub oldheads about the city itself. It’s fucking Chicago. It’s great, the best pizza and improv comedy comes from there, but get over it. The Gawker NYC folks are/were just as fucking aggravating with their weird, dumb superiority complexes.)
Oh, I don’t give a shit about Chicago, but that’s where most of them seemed to be, and even if they weren’t Golden Era AVC writers, they were still better this crop. I’m just criticizing the mandate for being a dumb power move on management’s behalf.(I do hate that Chicago/NYC/and hell even L.A. superiority complex though.)
Yeah, I find any kind of geographical pride kinda weird. I can dig that people are enthusiastic about where they live (or UNenthusiastic if that’s how they feel) but when that enthusiasm morphs into actual *pride*? Like… c’mon man. It’s dirt that you happen to eat, sleep, and shit on. It’s the same reason any kind of nationalism is fucking bonkers to me. For the vast majority of people on Earth you were born in a place because your parents happened to be there at the time. It’s also why I fucking HATE ICE or any kind of anti-immigrant sentiment. If somebody struggled to relocate to country X, they have way more of a right to be there than some asshole who was just fucking BORN in country X. Ugh, fucking white nationalists are the goddam worst…