‘His Dark Materials’ Scribe Jack Thorne on Writers Strike: TV Will “Get Bad Very Quickly” Without Young Voices

Georg Szalai
·3 min read

British TV and film writer Jack Thorne (His Dark Materials, The Eddy, Enola Holmes) braved the London heat on Wednesday to join an estimated more than 200 members of writing and other guilds to show solidarity with striking Writers Guild of America members in Hollywood.

“What the WGA is doing so bravely is on behalf of us all,” he explained to The Hollywood Reporter about why he wanted to participate in the “Global Day of Solidarity” with events in various countries, including the event in London’s Leicester Square, organized by the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (WGGB) and other guilds.

More from The Hollywood Reporter

“The thing that I’m particularly interested in is the younger writers and the people breaking through. That’s so vital in this country. TV is going to get bad very, very quickly unless we find a way to help these young writers through. And if we’re not, if TV minimums don’t [work], if we don’t have writers rooms that are properly functioning, then we’re not going to allow that to happen. So, I’m here in solidarity and because I think what they are doing is so important. For me, it’s about writer minimums and about writer rooms. So it’s about those young voices, and that won’t cost a fortune.”

Asked if that meant it was not just about his generation of writers, Thorne quipped: “Absolutely. Yeah. It is for people who are hopefully better and brighter and prettier than we are.”

Thorne also shared his experience as a young writer on Skins. “I didn’t grow up in the WGA, I grew up in the WGGB. But me being in the Skins writers room taught me how to be a writer. We were in there for months and months and months. And Brian Elsley, who was our leader, taught me so much about how to be a scriptwriter, and I wouldn’t be doing the job I am doing now if it wasn’t for that.”

Thorne also highlighted his work to increase the British media and entertainment industry’s focus on disability. “We are working a lot on disability in this country,” he told THR. “We are trying to change the way that disability is included in our industry and in particular accessible practices within the industry. And that takes commitment of time and that takes commitment of money. If we end up in a world where a very few are controlling all means of production, then we are going to be in a real mess when those sorts of things are concerned.”

Concluded Thorne: “Young disabled writers are coming through that system, and we don’t have many senior disabled writers. So we need them coming through. That is vital.”

Another big-name British writer, Russell T Davies (Doctor Who, Queer as Folk), told THR on Wednesday why he felt it was so important to express solidarity with striking Hollywood scribes. “This is a death spiral. This is very, very serious,” he said. “I can’t quite get my head wrapped around the AI argument, which every industry in the world is facing. But I can understand staffing and wages and respect and the attitude of employers towards their staff. And that is suffering massively across our industry. That is wrong, that needs unions to stand up and (put up a) fight. Because profit is so ruling our entire world now. So that is very serious.”

Added Davies: “We are seeing a huge television boom, which is very exciting and very nice for those of us who benefit from it. But it is undoubtedly being seen as profit. The people chasing that much profit are not the producers, not the executive producers, it is people way above them on a boardroom level that you and I will never even know the names of. They are making profit and crushing down on the (workers). It’s the story of the world.”

Best of The Hollywood Reporter

Click here to read the full article.