The Screen Actors Guild contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) expires on June 30 at midnight Pacific time. That means on July 1—unless SAG-AFTRA seeks an extension, which is on the table, per Deadline—the actors’ union will join the Writers Guild of America on strike. The unprecedented alignment of Hollywood unions’ concerns has been described as an “inflection point” for the industry. Although the Directors’ Guild reached its own agreement, SAG-AFTRA not only authorized a strike in advance, but more than 1,000 actors have signed a letter urging its leadership to fight for the best deal possible, even if that means moving forward with a work stoppage. With the deadline creeping closer, The A.V. Club has spoken with a number of actors over the last month about their thoughts on the potential strike and why they feel the current labor movement in Hollywood is so important.
Never Have I Ever stars have health insurance concerns
At a recent Q&A with The A.V. Club, Richa Moorjani of Never Have I Ever called this moment a “critical moment in Hollywood history,” noting that “actors of color, actors with disabilities, LGBTQ+ actors” are the ones who historically have to fight for a seat at the table. “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!’” she told us. “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.”
Her co-star Poorna Jagannathan agreed that the systems in place “need to align with the reality of where we are all at.” Noting the pay disparity for writers and performers of color, she shares that “although I’ve been an actor for about 15 years, I just started [getting] health insurance in 2016, that’s it.” Like writers, many working actors go months between jobs, threatening their union health insurance (SAG-AFTRA members lose coverage if “You do not continue to meet the minimum earnings or days worked requirements during your designated base earnings period,” per the guild’s website.)
Jagannathan recalled “begging people to hire you on anything” just to make the cut for health insurance, adding, “It’s very stressful, and especially now, personally, without residuals, because we’re doing so much streaming, just think about: what happens if you have a disability? Or what if you’re pregnant? … If life happens to you, then you’re shit out of luck.”
Vivica A. Fox stands with Snoop Dogg
Asked by The A.V. Club about a potential strike, Vivica A. Fox cited a recent quote from Snoop Dogg (“Could somebody explain to me how you could get a billion streams and not get a million dollars? That shit don’t make sense to me.”) As Snoop and Fox both point out, streaming services are claiming big audience numbers that aren’t reflected in payment to artists.
“So if it’s to fight so that we don’t get 100 stack of checks that may total $17? Like, first of all, stop wasting paper!” She said, referencing the diminishing residuals that affect both writers and performers. “And second of all, let’s be fair, you know? I can remember I did a film, and I won’t put that on blast, but I did a film, and box office gross, I was able—we were all able to see the numbers when they come in. They come in every week, you can see it, you can google it, look it up. We kept getting these little letters that said, ‘You haven’t broke even. But here’s a little small residual check.’ So, how can something gross $41 million and we haven’t broke even, and the movie was only made for $7 million? Let’s do the math. That ain’t mathin’!”
Secret Invasion stars see a need for change
“I’m worried about future generations of writers and performers,” Marvel star and How I Met Your Mother alum Cobie Smulders recently told The A.V. Club’s Saloni Gajjar. “When I came into this business, because of the way my family operated, it didn’t even seem like a way to make a living, being an actor. It’s about bolstering and supporting new people and going them a good leg up to create more things for people to enjoy.”
Meanwhile, her Secret Invasion co-star Dermot Mulroney advocated for SAG to “just strike immediately and get this whole thing over with as fast as possible, so we can get back to entertaining America, entertaining the world.” He opined, “The problem is we just don’t know … why all the money is going into these corporate pockets instead of feeding the people that create the product that they sell—and them selling is checking some sort of spreadsheet. They’re not boots-on-the-ground kind of creators the way—that’s who we’re talking about taking care of here.”
