SAG-AFTRA STRIKE INDUSTRY
T his is real life-and-death stuff,” said actor Matt Damon ahead of the UK premiere of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer . The Oscar winner wasn’t talking about the film, though; he was speaking out in support of a more current crisis that’s very close to home. Damon was speaking at a premiere which had been pushed forward an hour so he, Cillian Murphy and Emily Blunt could walk the red carpet before joining 65,000 members of the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) in their first walkout in 40 years.
Will Lawrence reports on a historic shutdown in Tinseltown, as the ongoing labour disputes remain unresolved
The big names in Oppenheimer – which also features Florence Pugh, Robert Downey Jr, Gary Oldman and Rami Malek – are established earners with lots of healthy pay packets to date, but SAG-AFTRA notes that 87% of its members earn less than $26,000 a year from acting, making them ineligible for health coverage through the union. Across the US, the median pay for an actor last year was around $18 an hour, and the union says their clients’ annual pay is reliant on residuals from movie and TV appearances, which have plummeted since the advent of streaming. “A lot of people are on the
39
definitionmags
Powered by FlippingBook