Stars Support MPTF NextGen Summer Party Amid Organization’s Increased Strike Demand: “We Need This Funding to Be Able to Help People”
For over 100 years, the Motion Picture & Television Fund has provided financial support and services to entertainment industry members in need of help. That need has never been greater as the actors strike stretches into its third week and the writers strike into its third month — both with no end in sight and thousands unable to work.
To support the fund, Max Greenfield, Darren Criss, Colman Domingo, Yvette Nicole Brown and Harry Shum Jr. joined hundreds of guests on the Neuhouse Hollywood rooftop on Sunday night for the MPTF Next Gen Summer Party.
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While the mood was festive, the strikes and their implications for Hollywood were never far from anyone’s mind.
“There are people who have asked, ‘Why are you going to a party?’ But we need this funding to be able to help people,” explained Brown. “I was talking to [MPTF president] Bob Beitcher, who said that the fund was getting 20 calls a day before the strike. Now he’s getting 200 calls a day for financial assistance, and they don’t just need help to get by; it’s like, ‘I’m in dire straits. I’m living in my car. I don’t know what to do.’ It’s scary, and without the MPTF and other funds that help, a lot of people won’t make it.”
The party raised thousands of dollars for the fund through raffle tickets, a silent auction and ticket sales. MPTF provides working and retired members of the entertainment community with a safety net of health and social services, and reports it’s currently receiving 10 times more calls now than before the strikes, with 75 percent of those coming from below-the-line workers like grips, camera operators and production assistants.
While many party-goers — who also included Lisa Edelstein, Reid Scott, Ben Barnes, Olivia Holt and Cristo Fernández — discussed potential ways they think the strike could end, Greenfield shared that he believes it will take a unifying figure who can work with both sides to create an equitable deal.
“Somebody needs to come in because I just don’t have faith right now in the AMPTP. I just don’t think they’re capable. They haven’t shown us anything that would suggest they’re capable of making this work out and finding a resolution,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “You hear stories about Peter Chernin and Bob Iger who came in and were able to be diplomats and get the last writers strike resolved. So who on their side has the credibility to step up and do that now?”
Criss provided the evening’s entertainment by performing a short live set, including a medley of summer-themed songs such as “Summertime” from the musical Porgy and Bess.
It’s been a popular trend for actors to post residual checks for one or two cents on social media to demonstrate how little they’re paid for otherwise successful shows. Michael Rooker did suggest one way actors can boost the value of their low checks.
“I’ve gotten a one-cent check, and I get a lot of three-cent checks because I’ve been in the union now since ‘83,” Rooker revealed. “You know there’s a bar down on Ventura called Residuals. So if you go in there and you bring a two-cent check, you can trade it for a drink if you like.”
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