SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher delivered a fiery speech at a press convention right this moment, asserting the union’s plans to strike.
The strike will see some 160,000 movie and tv actors be a part of members of the Writers Guild of America who’re already on the picket strains, in what’s the first joint walkout between the 2 unions since 1960.
The strike is anticipated to cripple Hollywood, with all unionised writers and actors now stopping work, with no decision in sight. Members of each unions are demanding will increase in pay and residuals to mirror the streaming TV panorama, plus ensures they won’t get replaced by synthetic intelligence (AI).
Former The Nanny star Drescher, who’s now the President of Hollywood’s largest union, gave an impassioned speech to the media through which she mentioned the members of SAG-AFTRA had been being “victimised by a very greedy entity”.
Drescher’s speech, partly (as per Variety):
“It came with great sadness that we came to this crossroads. But we had no choice. We are the victims here. We are being victimised by a very greedy entity. I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us. I cannot believe it, quite frankly: How far apart we are on so many things. How they plead poverty, that they’re losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs. It is disgusting. Shame on them.
“They stand on the wrong side of history at this very moment. 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 labour unions. Because at some point, the jig is up. You cannot keep being dwindled and marginalised and disrespected and dishonoured. The entire business model has been changed by streaming, digital, AI.”
Drescher completed her speech by demanding that members of SAG-AFTRA be handled with “respect and to be honoured for our contribution. You share the wealth because you cannot exist without us”.
Her speech comes after Drescher discovered herself going through a backlash from her personal union’s members, after she was photographed at a glitzy occasion in Italy with Kim Kardashian because the strike loomed.
“My union president chilling in Italy while we’re in the middle of negotiations and about to go on strike,” actor Kirk Acevedo tweeted after Kardashian shared a photograph of she and Drescher on the Dolce & Gabbana celebration on social media.
“We’re asking to be better compensated by the studios and Fran Drescher is mugging for cameras in Italy. The optics look f**king terrible.”
Perry Mason actor Eric Lange tweeted: “This is a really bad f**king look, @frandrescher. It’s astonishing that, on the eve of a likely strike, while people are losing their homes, their health insurance, etc you’re partying it up with Kim in Italy. Astonishing and indefensible.”
Meanwhile, the strike threw the London premiere of one of many 12 months’s most anticipated movies into disarray, with your complete forged of Oppenheimerstrolling out of the premiere simply because the movie was attributable to start.
Director Christopher Nolan instructed the viewers in London’s Leicester Square that his forged had walked out of the occasion in solidarity with the strike.
Source: www.news.com.au
