'The Whole Year Is F---ed': A Striking Actor on What Lies Ahead
It’d be one thing 'if Bob Iger was like, ‘And I’m a starving CEO! We’re all doing this for the love of art'...
Talks are apparently at a “standstill,” according to The Hollywood Reporter, with the Writers Guild of America and Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers reportedly not scheduled to resume contract negotiations yet after all the back-and-forth over the studios’ suites of proposals that the WGA deemed “neither nothing, nor nearly enough.”
If you haven’t yet listened to our podcast this week, you really should. Actor Addie Weyrich (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Mack & Rita), whom I met on the Netflix picket lines, very eloquently articulated the anxiety and fear that is mounting for creatives as the writers strike goes well past the 100-day mark and the actors strike now marches on through Month Two.
On the heels of the pandemic, “the thing that’s frustrating is that it’s halted all momentum again,” said Weyrich, who booked an FX pilot last year that didn’t go and now sees a dead zone for the rest of the year, even if the strikes are resolved soon.
“This year doesn’t exist for me, career-wise,” she said. “The whole year is fucked. The sentiment is that everyone’s fucked for the whole year. It’s really dark, it’s really anger-inducing. No one can afford to go to therapy, so that’s bad. It’s really bad.”
She’s not alone in that feeling, as my colleague Peter Kiefer reported earlier this week, as deals evaporate and layoffs abound.
“What’s so crazy is all of these studios that I’m picketing outside of — I was so excited to move here to have meetings there and to walk into those doors and to like, go to events at Netflix,” said Weyrich, calling the currently conflict “heartbreaking.” But “if you’re making a ton of money off of stuff that we’ve done, we’re not asking to be millionaires, we’re just asking to have a percentage of that that feels reasonable.”
While public sentiment is relatively sympathetic to the striking writers and actors, there are still strangers at bars who feel compelled to tell Weyrich what they think “actors are asking for too much.”
“It’s not surprising that flight attendants are also unionizing and Starbucks employees are also unionizing. People just have opinions because they think that when they have an opinion about the actors strike or the writers strike, it’s just as flashy as an opinion about the hottest movie of the summer because we’re talking about actors and writers,” she said. “But we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about labor unions. We’re talking about unionizing together to negotiate for fair living wages for work that you do, which is a sentiment that anybody can relate to.”
The “starving artist” trope lives on, apparently. It’d be one thing “if Bob Iger was like, ‘And I’m a starving CEO! We’re all doing this for the love of art,” Weyrich told us on the pod. “It’s a stereotype that someone who is an artist also doesn’t want a basic standard of living.”
I encourage you to listen to her whole interview here on The Ankler podcast.
ICYMI: Strike News
Amid outcry after the studios’ counteroffer memo was publicized, the AMPTP has hired the Levinson Group, a Washington D.C. crisis management firm, to help with their messaging strategy. (The Hollywood Reporter)
IATSE Local 80 was forced to close its offices on Friday after receiving a frightening letter from someone saying they were an out-of-work grip. “He said some very scary things,” said Dejon Ellis, Jr., the union’s business manager. “He’s just mad. He says he’s out of work and homeless. He’s distraught. I don’t know if it’s a cry for help or not knowing how to control his anger.” (Variety)
Up north in Toronto, around 300 Canadian union members participated in a rally on Friday outside the local Amazon and Apple offices to demonstrate their solidarity with the strikes. (The Hollywood Reporter)
The music industry has taken a hit from the ongoing dual strikes, as artists are unable to sign new music licensing pacts, guest and host plans for the MTV Video Music Awards and the Billboard Music Awards are up in the air. (Billboard)
Nearly 25,000 petition signatories are urging the UK government to create an “income replacement scheme” for out of work TV and film crew. If the petition reaches 100,000 signatures, UK law mandates that the resolution receives a parliamentary debate. (Deadline)
Severance and Killing Eve studio Fifth Season laid off 30 staffers, 12 percent of its workforce, on Thursday as a result of the ongoing strikes. (The Hollywood Reporter)
Comedy writer Tim Doyle came under fire in a private WGA Facebook group when he responded to a post about the strike reaching 100 days with an image of a lynching that featured the caption “I just got my tree up!” In response, Doyle said he was “very sorry,” and that, “I’m bored at the moment, and I write a lot of jokes. I’m a comedy writer. I was brain dead in that moment, and I picked the wrong piece of clip art to go with a silly joke about killing myself after 100 days on the picket line,” he said. Group admin Keith Powell (30 Rock) called it an “epically horrible, racist, self-martyring, vile, clueless, out-of-touch, boneheaded, disturbing and toxic post.” (The Hollywood Reporter)
We can't put food on our tables. Too much silence on the issues that effect ordinary men. Art is a refection of our society and sadly, had been declining for years.
Yeah, this whole year is fucked for everyone; below the line crews are with you. There's a thread in the Facebook group "Crew Stories" that began by asking "What luxury item have you had to give up because of the strikes?" So many people gave up the "luxuries" of housing, food, medical care and mental health.