


Several actors showed approval of their union's vote to strike in various statements and actions Thursday.
The announcement from the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists Thursday happened to come on the same day as the London premier of the film Oppenheimer. As a result, its cast, including Matt Damon, Cillian Murphy, Florence Pugh, Emily Blunt, Olli Haaskivi, Robert Downey Jr., and more walked out as soon as the news broke.
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"Nobody wants a work stoppage," Damon said ahead of the walkout in a red carpet interview with Deadline Hollywood. "If our leadership is saying that the deal isn’t fair, then we gotta hold strong till we get a deal that's fair for working actors. It’s the difference between having healthcare and not for a lot of actors, and we gotta do what’s right by them.”
Matt Damon at the #Oppenheimer premiere says that the Hollywood labor strikes will be brutal for actors and his own production company, which has shut down one of his company's films pic.twitter.com/ssx0Q2KJRT
— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) July 13, 2023
"If the actors go on strike, we won’t be allowed to post anything promoting our work until things are resolved," Haaskivi wrote on Instagram Wednesday. "I’ll be excited to say more and show more once we get the deal we deserve."
"As people outside the business may not know and those people in the business do know, the work of SAG-AFTRA is on behalf of the rank-in-file performers, the 95% of people in the union who either, A — Don't make a living doing this or B — They barely make a living and work paycheck to paycheck," Alec Baldwin explained in an Instagram video. "Only 5% of people in this business are highly paid and make a good living doing this."
The actor went on to congratulate SAG-AFTRA and lauded that it "gets tough" on salaries for all of its 160,000 members. Baldwin acknowledged that nobody wants a strike.
"I became an American citizen the same day my union authorized a strike and I received my new Union card. Took 13 years of visas to get here and I’ve been a member of @sagaftra for 13years," actress Lesley Ann Brandt wrote on Instagram. "It’s the most American of days today. Feeling proud."
"We stand in solidarity with our writers and fellow union members across our industry and others," transgender actor Lavern Cox wrote on Instagram.
"If we must strike… THEN WE SHALL STRIIIIIIIKEEEEEEE!!!" actor Jack Quaid, son of Dennis Quaid, captioned the SAG-AFTRA logo he posted to his Instagram profile.
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This is the first SAG-AFTRA strike in 43 years. Now it joins the Writers Guild of America, which has remained on strike for over 70 days, in what includes some 11,500 writers. WGA has come to a head with the same group of studios, networks, and streamers over higher wages. SAG-AFTRA is fighting for wages as well, but also for protections against artificial intelligence
The last time WGA and SAG-AFTRA were simultaneously on strike was in 1960, with Ronald Reagan at the helm before he ran for president.