As You Wish: Mandy Patinkin Picket Sign Invokes ‘Princess Bride’ As He & Bob Odenkirk Support WGA Strike
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UPDATED, 3:25 PM: Striking writers marching Wednesday in New York City were joined by SAG-AFTRA members Bob Odenkirk and Mandy Patinkin — and the latter’s sign harkened back to a certain beloved 1987 movie.
Both Emmy winners walked the picket line side by side outside streaming giant Amazon’s field office in Manhattan. Patinkin carried a hand-lettered picket sign reading, “You killed residuals. Prepare to pay,” a riff on a celebrated line he uttered in The Princess Bride as the swashbuckling big-screen fairy tale character Inigo Montoya (“You killed my father. Prepare to die.”) And note the ROUS in the background of the photo above.
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Both Emmy-winning actors spoke to Deadline Hollywood about their reasons for joining the picket line. Watch a clip here and another fiery Patinkin speech below it:
“I believe all unions should be in solidarity. No one should go back to work until everyone has got an equitable fair wage and dignity to their lives…” Mandy Patinkin and Bob Odenkirk tell Deadline in NYC #WritersStike pic.twitter.com/jj4wS9ruMU
— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) May 10, 2023
Mandy Patinkin: “Without writers we have nothing!” #WritersGuildStrike @WGAEast pic.twitter.com/5lx4sKw6JT
— Lisa Takeuchi Cullen 竹内理沙 (@LisaCullen) May 10, 2023
“It’s a shame that we have to do this,” Better Call Saul and Lucky Hank star Odenkirk said, “but writers need to be able to pay their bills and live a decent life when they’re writing this great material that we’re all getting to do and that’s providing such entertainment for everyone.”
Patinkin chimed in: “Couldn’t agree more. And we’re nothing without our writers — without our writers, we’re a blank face.”
On Monday, the Homeland and Criminal Minds alum posted a 17-second clip of himself standing against a wall and not saying a word. He captioned it, “This is what I would be doing on TV without writers.”
This is what I would be doing on TV without writers.
Writers are asking for fairness: when the studios invest millions into producing a film or series, they can pay for the value writers create. #WGAStrong #WGAStrike @WGAEast @WGAWest pic.twitter.com/CVQwBZocQC— Mandy Patinkin (@PatinkinMandy) May 8, 2023
On Wednesday, Patinkin picked up on that theme, urging “the people who make all the money” in film and television to give writers the capacity to live sustainably from their work. “Give them a fraction” of the studios’ earnings,” Patinkin said, “to put a roof over their heads, food on they table, put their kids in school.”
He also urged them to repopulate the writers rooms that have shrunk or disappeared in the streaming age “so that they can learn the craft that has given us wonderful lives.”
“None of it would exist had it not been on the page,” he added.
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