How Hollywood's twin strikes are affecting the lives of actors and writers from Delaware

It's been three months since the Writers Guild of America went on strike, bringing writing rooms to a screeching halt across the U.S. entertainment industry.

And it was 2½ weeks ago when actors stopped their work as well when the Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists also went on strike, joining writers on picket lines in Los Angeles, New York and beyond.

All projects tied to a studio, network or streaming service are now on pause as the pair of unions battle the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers for a better contract with major sticking points including residuals from streaming services and regulations on the use of artificial intelligence, among others.

It's the first industrywide walkout in more than 60 years.

For Delawareans in Hollywood working as actors and writers ― everyone from Emmy Award-nominated stars such as Aubrey Plaza to off-screen scribes ― it means not only a work stoppage, but a paycheck stoppage.

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And with a combined 180,000 SAG-AFTRA and WGA members, those on strike aren't all millionaires living in mansions. The majority work paycheck to paycheck, keeping an eye on mortgage payments and other bills just like you or me.

We caught up with a few Delaware natives in the entertainment business to see how the strike has affected their lives and what they hope to get out of it.

Ben Warheit, writer ('Late Night with Seth Meyers')

For Ben Warheit, a writer for "Late Night with Seth Meyers" since Jimmy Fallon left the show nearly a decade ago, it's been three months since he's written a joke for the former "Saturday Night Live" funnyman.

When the strike hit, all late-night talk shows shut down and have been in reruns ever since.

Even though the University of Delaware and Brandywine High School graduate has been writing for the show from his Brooklyn home since the pandemic and no longer makes a daily commute to 30 Rockefeller Plaza in midtown Manhattan, it's a weird feeling not writing for the nightly comedy show.

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The Zoom writers meetings have stopped. The tapings have halted. And his paychecks have been downsized.

"They are running reruns of the shows, so I get residuals from those, but it's obviously not the same amount," he says.

Even so, he believes the strike is worth it considering the changing media landscape including the rise of streaming services and the introduction of AI technology.

Unlike "Late Night" shows where the number of viewers is known to all through television ratings, streaming services do not publicly release the number of streams for each show.

With private viewership numbers, it's impossible to properly determine residuals for the talent, Warheit says.

Currently, all signs are pointing toward this strike continuing, stretching past the 100-day WGA strike in 2007-2008. The longest WGA strike came in 1988 and lasted 153 days.

"There are a lot of points of negotiation, and I obviously don't think the strike is going to result in all of them being addressed, but [the AMPTP] is not even willing to negotiate on issues like this and that's the scariest thing," he says.

With writers and actors usually working on television shows or films in spurts, it's the residuals that help keep them afloat financially until they return to a new season or get their next job, Warheit says. In fact, the pay structure of residuals was first developed in 1960, the last time both the actors and writers unions went on strike together.

"You could make a living because they tracked viewership and you got a percentage, so with the migration to streaming, people can't really make money off that and it's a big fight," he adds.

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While on strike, Warheit is continuing to do live improv and sketch comedy shows in the city in between days on the picket line. He's also in talks with the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre about putting on a show there this fall when it reopens. Warheit also has been writing for a couple of potential projects including television shows. (The strike rules allow writers to brainstorm and write on their own as long as it's not attached to a network or studio.)

Another side effect of the strike has been Warheit coming home to Wilmington to visit friends and family more often. In fact, he will be reconnecting with members of his college-era rock band Stone City to record some new music, an act fronted by Dan White (Bright Corners, Magical Mystery).

Keith Powell, actor and director ('30 Rock,' 'Young Rock,' 'Big Sky')

As one of the better-known Delawareans in Hollywood thanks to his seven years playing James "Toofer" Spurlock on Tina Fey's "30 Rock," actor/director Keith Powell has had an interesting time on the picket line.

"There's a lot of people from Delaware on the line, frankly. I run into a lot of people who are like, 'Hey, I'm from Delaware!' because they know I'm from Delaware," says Saint Mark's High School graduate Powell, who has walked the line with Delaware friends including actor/writer Seth Kirschner, co-creator of "Little Demon" starring Aubrey Plaza.

He's been a vocal supporter of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, jumping on social media with a video in July after Deadline.com wrote an article that quoted an anonymous studio executive.

"The studios and the AMPTP believe that by October most writers will be running out of money after five months on the picket lines and no work. 'The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,' a studio executive told Deadline," the article read.

A visibly angry Powell implored his fellow strikers to be clear-eyed and strong in the face of such threats.

"Everybody's energized and ready and they know we are on the right side of history. We know that we will get a fair deal eventually," says Powell, who lives in Pasadena and has directed episodes of television shows such as "Young Rock," "Big Sky" and "Interview With a Vampire."

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However, he does not disagree that tough times are ahead as the WGA strike enters its fourth month and the studios are seemingly dug in. In his life, he is facing a pile of bills from a recent home renovation that wrapped up before the strike.

"I think this strike is going to end some peoples' career, unfortunately," says Powell, who appeared in an episode of Apple+'s "Shrinking" starring Harrison Ford and Jason Segel earlier this year. "It's just the nature of the beast and it's ugly and evil. And it's going to make some people homeless.

"It's important for us to survive any way we can because at the end we will have a fair deal that will reward the entire industry. It's all about finding a way to persevere."

For Powell, it means working on his own projects, including a web series he plans on launching in the future.

In addition to residuals and AI, contract talks include negotiations about minimums for writing staff sizes, minimum employment durations, minimum pay, health care, pensions and more.

Powell, who wrapped up directing work on a new Amazon Prime show "Clean Slate" before the SAG-AFTRA strike, has been on the picket line before, dating back to the 2007-2008 WGA strike. He sees studios using the same scare tactics now as they did last time and it's being met with "palpable anger" by union members.

"They are trying to use the same playbook. It worked 15 years ago because it was a new way of playing hardball," he says. "But now everybody's hip to it. You can't expect artists to adhere to an old way of doing things while using them in a new way and expect them to just go with it."

Neil Casey, actor ('Ghostbusters,' 'Big Mouth,' 'White House Plumbers')

As a WGA strike captain, Los Angeles-based actor/writer Neil Casey has been busy organizing pickets and joining his fellow writers on the picket line before recently coming to the East Coast for a pre-scheduled series of improv comedy shows.

Casey, along with comedians that included Jason Mantzoukas, sold out two weeks of "The Last Improv Show" at Washington, D.C.'s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

And now the Wilmington native and Salesianum School graduate is home in Delaware for his brother's wedding, already hitting favorite spots Kozy Korner, Dead Presidents and Kid Shelleen's while in town.

While the former "Saturday Night Live" writer may not be in Hollywood right now, he's keeping an eye on the twin strikes that have effectively shut down the entertainment world.

He says he's been able to absorb the work stoppage because he's deeper into his career and has been steadily working on everything from 2016's "Ghostbusters" (he was villain Rowan North) and Nick Kroll's animated "Big Mouth" to HBO's "Silicon Valley" and this year's "White House Plumbers" mini-series.

The Wilmington Drama League alum passionately supports the strike, especially for younger writers and actors whom he sees as not having the same opportunities as he had as studios, streamers and networks exploit loopholes in their previous contact, he says.

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"My thoughts are with people coming off their second staffing job who already had a second job and now have to get a third on top of that," he says. "There should be a fair pathway for them to have a career. They should not be writing on million-dollar television programs like it's gig work and need a second job."

In their previous contract, new media referred to shows or films for platforms such as YouTube, not the burgeoning new world of streaming services that are beginning to dominate, hosting a wide swath of the new TV shows and films released each year, he says.

"They are trying to pay them like they are making a video for the internet 10 years ago and it's unacceptable," says Casey, who has a deal with Universal, working on an array of comedy and reality programs for them, including NBC's "Making It" and Peacock's "Baking It," which earned him a WGA award for writing earlier this year.

He sees technology companies such as Apple and other streaming services trying to treat the entertainment business like others that the tech world has entered.

"They think they can do what they have done in other industries: come in and artificially lower the price, put the squeeze on labor and eliminate the gains labor has achieved over the past 100 years," he adds. "Essentially, they are saying it's their way or the highway and think they can pull an Uber on the entertainment industry.

"They have another thing coming because it's not going to happen."

Shukree Tilghman, writer ('This Is Us,' 'Animal Kingdom,' 'The Vampire Diaries')

With nearly a decade in the WGA, Newark native and Sanford School graduate Shukree Tilghman has seen firsthand the changes that he says made the strike needed.

His first television writing job was for USA drama "Satisfaction." Back then, it had 10-episode seasons ― a low number for the time ― and he worked five months for one season of the show, says Tilghman, who now lives in Los Angeles and has been picketing a couple of times a week.

After helping write the show, he was able to go on set in Atlanta and learn how to produce, an apprenticeship that has led to more producing work over the past 10 years. In addition, he would get "pretty healthy" residual checks since the show also was sold to foreign markets.

But over the past several years with the rise of streamers and a rise in the amount of content needed to feed them, series are typically much shorter and writers often now work in "mini rooms," a system with fewer writers working for a shorter period of time on each show. Once their time is over, a showrunner completes the program with the writers cut out of other involvement or opportunities to learn other skills to benefit their career.

And because streaming services don't sell their programs like traditional TV or cable, using a subscriber model instead, the residuals are a fraction of what they once were, he says.

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"So it becomes much harder to make a career, especially at the beginning," he says. "It's so much different now."

Tilghman has been busy in recent years writing on and co-producing shows such as ABC's breakthrough family drama "This Is Us" and TNT's crime drama "Animal Kingdom," along with executive producing OWN's documentary series "All the Single Ladies" and previously writing on The CW's "The Vampire Diaries."

At the time of the strike, he was working on the still-not-released "The Emperor of Ocean Park" for MGM+.

Like Casey, he feels more for the younger, newer writers as the strike continues as they fight for a new contract even though he has a mortgage and school tuition payments due as his stream of income dries up.

"With no end in sight, it's really tough. And even for folks like me doing fairly well. I don't care how much money you make, being without a paycheck for six, eight or 10 months, it's going to affect you unless you're a multi-millionaire," he says. "It's getting tight for a lot of people and they are feeling it.

"I blame the studios for not making a reasonable deal. We understand they have to make their money, but we need a fair deal as well."

Have a story idea? Contact Ryan Cormier of Delaware Online/The News Journal at rcormier@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2863. Follow him on Facebook (@ryancormier) and Twitter (@ryancormier).

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: 4 Delawareans in the entertainment industry sound off on strikes