Striking Actors Say They Won’t Cave to Studios’ Holiday Threat

David Hyde Pierce has heard the rallying cries of striking actors from outside the building he’s been rehearsing in. The Frasier star has been performing in the off-Broadway musical Here We Are for the last month, and finally found time to join union members Friday on the picket lines outside of Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery’s offices in New York City.

“I’d look at my friends protesting everyday thinking, I wish I could be there and cheer on from rehearsal,” Pierce tells Rolling Stone. “So finally, I get to participate.”

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As the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) surpasses 100 days on strike, picketers continue to chant vigorously from coast to coast as negotiating committee members and Hollywood executives throw offers across the bargaining table. Thousands of SAG–AFTRA members signed an open letter Thursday stating that after months on the line they’d prefer to stay on strike than agree to a subpar deal.

“We have not come all this way to cave now. We have not gone without work, without pay, and walked picket lines for months just to give up on everything we’ve been fighting for. We cannot and will not accept a contract that fails to address the vital and existential problems that we all need fixed,” read the letter.

The signatories included Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Leslie Odom Jr., Demi Moore, Jon Hamm, Mark Ruffalo, Jonathan Groff, and others. On the same day the letter was published, The Wrap reported that the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers would delay negotiations until 2024 if the two sides are unable to reach an agreement by next week, citing a source “with knowledge of their thinking.” (The studios made a similar threat to the WGA before reaching a deal the Writers’ Guild was happy withl.)

Prolonged talks would endanger the 2024 broadcast TV and summer movie schedule, a source familiar with negotiations tells Rolling Stone.  

“The reality of a production schedule creates urgency to reach a deal as soon as possible,” says a source close to negotiations.

The Frasier star says he’s not feeding into the rumors and would rather stay out of what’s happening in the room.

“I trust that everyone on both sides can look around at the world and see how much awfulness is happening,” says Pierce, “and that they will take this opportunity to show the world that compromise and understanding and fairness and justice are actually still possible.”

But what’s actually happening inside the bargaining room? Well, Hollywood executives such as Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, Disney CEO Bob Iger, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, and NBCUniversal chief content officer Donna Langley made a request to resume bargaining Tuesday, Oct. 24, after suspending talks on Oct. 11.

Instead of meeting again the next day, the SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee spent the day reviewing and ultimately countering the studios’ latest offer. In early October, a proposal that would cost Hollywood companies 57 cents per streaming subscriber a year divided the table, with Sarandos calling the “levy” on subscribers a “bridge” too far — even though Netflix recently raised its subscription price by $3 per month to $22.99 for its premium ad-free tier.

The film and television industry has already taken a massive hit. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 45,000 jobs have been lost within film and TV since May, around the time the Writers Guild of America went on strike.

Despite the dire situation, SAG-AFTRA chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland made a pitstop on the picket lines outside Paramount Thursday and told Deadline he remains “cautiously optimistic,” and that he’s not paying attention to the “whisper campaigns.” The sentiment was reiterated on New York City strike lines this week as Sarah Paulson, Zachary Quinto, Ke Huy Quan, and Sarah Jessica Parker expressed their solidarity from the streets.

“We’re all here together,” Quinto tells the Rolling Stone.  

Paulson, Quinto, and Jessica Lange, who all star in FX’s American Horror Story franchise, walked the picket lines outside of the NBCUniversal New York City offices last week, with Quinto calling the studios “dismissive and disrespectful.” (American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy received criticism over the summer for continuing production of the horror show’s twelfth season during the WGA strike.)

Other actors picketing Friday included Carla Gugino (The Fall of the House of Usher), Zach Cherry (Severance), Lea DeLaria (Orange Is the New Black), Jill Hennessy (Crossing Jordan), and J. Smith-Cameron (Succession). Known for playing Gerri in the dark media satire, Smith-Cameron joined the picket lines and emphasized that the 160,000 SAG-AFTRA members, as well as affected crew members, urgently need a fair deal.

“We’re serious and we’re gonna wait until there’s the truth,” Smith Cameron tells Rolling Stone.

With Halloween approaching, SAG-AFTRA published a now-deleted post offering Halloween guidance. The post encouraged union members to dress as “generalized characters and figures” like a ghost, zombie, or spider rather than struck-work costumes from movies like Barbie, Marvel or Star Wars. On Oct. 20, the union amended its guidelines to not include kids after pushback from Hollywood stars, including the following tweet from Ryan Reynolds: “I look forward to screaming ‘scab’ at my 8 year old all night. She’s not in the union but she needs to learn.”

As a SAG-AFTRA member for 14 years, Teen Wolf’s Dylan O’Brien can’t help but feel irritated that the strike has no clear end, and he sympathizes with the actors juggling multiple jobs while running to auditions several days a week. As O’Brien walked in circles, picket sign in hand, in front of Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery’s New York City offices Wednesday, he reflected on the WGA’s successful deal with the studios after striking for around five months.

“They’re putting people out of work; they have been for four months now,” O’Brien tells Rolling Stone. “It’s fucking embarrassing, and they’re multibillion-dollar companies. It’s classic corporate greed. It’s a joke. So, I would be embarrassed to not be out here.”

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