Hollywood has shut down after the Screen Actors Guild and
AFTRA joined the Writers Guild of America in a strike.
Now, it's been more than 60 years since actors joined writers in a strike
with the hopes of improving working conditions, securing better pay.
And in this particular case, ensuring that there's proper rules,
regulations, and oversight on AI technology used in the industry.
Now, here to give us an update on what is happening on the ground is actor
James Cromwell.
James, thank you so much for joining us.
>> My pleasure, thank you.
>> I wanted to start off by asking you to kind of explain to the viewers,
for anyone who might not be privy to the details of this story,
why the actors have decided to join the writers in this historic strike.
>> Gore Vidal once said, we are the United States of amnesia.
We learn nothing because we remember nothing.
Corollary to that might be we are a country, not with amnesia, but
with dementia.
We remember nothing because most of us drank the Kool-Aid.
Back in the 2008 negotiations with the AMPTP,
that's the producers, they used the negotiations as a subterfuge
to allow themselves to develop and optimize streaming video.
Similar to the way Napster had done with music before their errand boys and
Congress shut it down completely.
The producers claimed that the streaming technology was so new,
they couldn't tell whether it was financially viable or even practicable.
And so, if SAG agreed to the extension of the current arrangement for
the next four years, at the end of that contract,
they would open their books and negotiate equitable compensation
justified by the current economics of the emerging field.
So for four years, they made money, handover fist, and
they never did open their books.
And we're still bargaining now over streaming platforms.
However, as you said, the new £600 gorilla in the room is definitely AI.
This may be the last negotiations we have with the AMPTP
if we do not win some kind of controls and rules about the use of AI.
Because if AI takes over, the industry will be incredibly low to backpedal and
pay people compensation for
the job that they're not doing that AI is completing for them.
>> In fact, there's been some reporting indicating that the studios would like to
have the extras sign over rights to their likeness for a one time payment.
And the deal would indicate that their likeness would be used
forever after that point without any future.
Mentioning that gorilla in the room is a good point to make here.
So, Jake, do you want to jump in?
>> Yeah, so, James, thank you for joining us again.
You and I have had a lot of great conversations, but
in this case, we have complications.
So when the executives plead poverty, it's absurd, right?
At the same time, media is splintering.
So in the old days we had, everybody would go to the same movie, and
that movie would make ungodly amount of money.
There were three network channels in the beginning, and
everybody in the country just watched three channels.
Now, there are thousands and thousands of options.
And so, each individual entity does potentially make less money.
So, putting aside the crocodile tears of the executives, how do we
tackle the major issue here, which is that the industry has changed overall?
And so, how can the actors, writers, etc,
adjust in a way that maintains the equitable structure that
we need while still recognizing that the industry is a little bit different?
>> Well, the industry is really not that much different, except in the distribution
of more product than they've ever had on platforms that are now available,
that were not available before, which doesn't represent a cost to them.
That represents an opportunity, both for the sale of the product that they made and
the advertising dollars that is used to finance the whole operation.
So, I don't think basically it has changed,
what they're doing is, I think they're trying to hedge the cost and
the confusion that they did when we first talked about streaming in 2008.
I think they wanna get an idea about what kind of impact AI will have.
Will the public accept the kind of product that AI produces?
Will you be able to distinguish what is AI and what is not AI?
Personally, I think that human beings looking at this will
look at it the way they do, say, CGI films, in which you know
that what is happening cannot be happening, obviously.
And so, you are detached from it.
We are detached from the import, the narrative line.
And it is the narrative line that informs us, that tells us, as human beings,
as theater goers, as moviegoers, who we are, what we think about each other,
how we relate to each other, that's the important part.
It's a technology that divides human beings up,
and actually then makes them they're not needed.
>> It's interesting that you say that, because in regard to the financial
makeup of the industry and how things are a little different.
But in terms of the profitability of this industry,
it's very clear in how much the executives for these studios are being compensated.
And what really stood out to me was a statement by an unnamed studio executive
in regard to the unwillingness to engage in good faith negotiations and
instead essentially sit back and watch actors essentially struggle.
And potentially even lose their apartments until they're at their knees and
begging for mercy.
So, I'm gonna read this graphic where one of these unnamed executives says this,
the end game is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their
apartments and losing their houses.
Again, that's a studio executive who spoke to Deadline.
Acknowledging the cold-as-ice approach,
several other sources reiterated the statement.
One insider called it a cruel, but necessary evil.
Curious what your reaction is to that.
>> This to me is like Governor Abbot denying
workers a water break and a rest break.
For what?
What do they save?
What is the cost?
But what will be the cost of not providing workers with the kind of whatever
they need to be able to work outside in 120 degree temperatures?
In this day and age, this is so petty.
I just watched the story of the smartest man in the room,
the documentary about Enron.
And it's incredible that people at the very, very top, the one percenters,
have absolutely no idea what it's like to try to live on the money you can make
as a regular actor or background person in this industry at this point in time.
You cannot live in a major city and
have an apartment that's anyway decent on what they pay you.
They pay absolutely nothing and they make money, they give bonuses.
To hear, what's his name?
Iger from Disney.
>> Bob Iger, yeah.
Saying he thought it reprehensible that actors at this time, under these
circumstances, when we have so many pressing needs, would be asking for money.
For more money, yes, for more money to be able to live,
to be able to have a life, to be able to do the work that they wanna do.
This is just immoral, unethical,
insanity, a cruelty beyond belief, yeah.
>> So, James, we had Barry Diller come out a day ago and say, hey, look,
we might all be in trouble here, the entire industry, and if they don't
settle it by the beginning of September, the whole thing might capsize.
I'm not sure exactly what that means, but then he had an interesting proposal.
So he said, look, not the lower level, the working actors,
etc, but the major stars and the executives should all take a 25% pay cut,
and then that's how we should solve this thing.
So what's your reaction to that?
>> I think it's, why doesn't he take a 25% less?
There's a start.
He can't afford 25%, a lot of people can't afford 25%.
And anyway, they don't make the problem,
they provide the service that those people in the tower sell.
So the people in the tower who don't do anything creative except
sell product, I suppose that's creative, but I doubt it.
They're the ones who should take the 25% cut.
They wanna cut?
Cut their bonus, cut their stock options.
That's exactly what happened with Enron, cut the stock options.
>> I do wanna also just provide some of the data in regard to how much these
executives are raking in while simultaneously trying to frame this
as a devastating thing the actors and writers are doing to the industry.
So let's go to graphic six here,
it'll show you that one of the top executives here is David Zasloff, who,
Jesus, he has brought in quite a bit of money, more than $498,000,000.
You have Ari Emanuel from Endeavor Group Holdings, $346,000,000.
Reed Hastings from Netflix, $209,000,000.
I mean, Bob Iger, who you mentioned earlier, from Walt Disney,
you have $195,000,000.
So, the list goes on and on.
And I think what most people who haven't really stopped to think about
what ordinary actors make are under the assumption that they're all raking in tens
of millions of dollars a year.
Because their mind automatically goes to the big names, the big stars.
And I do feel like the studios are kind of exploiting that narrative in order to
apply pressure to not, of course, engage in any good faith negotiations.
But to essentially pressure the workers to get back to work, and
to end the strike, and helping them in that mission.
I feel this is my personal opinion,
is the corporate media's framing of these strikes.
So, I wanna go to this CNN video and get your reaction to it.
Let's take a look.
>> Jolanda Sandejas Garcia, a janitor,
was laid off from Paramount Studios shortly after the writer strike began.
Fewer productions means less to clean.
Nearly two months later, she's collecting plastic bottles for cash.
>> This strike is just leftist infighting, that's what this is.
It affects the caterer most, it affects the crew members most,
the people who depend on their paycheck,
all because the people at the top want more money is what it comes down to.
>> So the narrative and I'm seeing it all over the place, that second clip
was from Fox News, and it's unsurprising that they would use that narrative.
But I mean, you see the same thing over at CNN, these greedy actors.
This strike is really putting all of these other know
surrounding the industry in a very tough spot.
And so, look, there's truth in that people are going to struggle as a result of this.
But what would you say in response to that critique and in response to that framing?
>> How about the people who make these statements go down to a set and
watch what background, what they do in a day?
Watch an actor who has a small part one day, a two day,
a week on a production, on a film.
See what they make.
If you have a union of 160,000 members and
only 15% of those can afford insurance,
although the cost of that insurance to them is only $27,000.
So that if they make $27,000, they can get insurance.
So 85% of our union is not making $27,000.
>> Wow. >> Those above,
it's also true that you used to be able to do one show after another show.
If you worked on television, you might even do one or two films in a year.
Now, that's not possible.
They want you for the one film that's when they don't want you anymore,
they don't want you going from one show to another show,
they don't want you going from one network to another network.
It makes it very much more difficult.
They're in the catbird seat because we are captive, we have to work.
And they offer us a small part, that's fine, but
it has to be compensated, so that somebody can live a decent life.
As long as somebody lives in an ivory tower,
as long as somebody helicopters to work.
As long as somebody has no idea about how the product that they sell aren't made,
only the money it costs to make it, and therefore, it's too much.
Funny how they always come up with the money when they wanna make a big tent pole
picture.
They have a lot of money, and when it tanks and
it goes down the toilet, no, usually heads don't roll.
They just move on to another tent pole.
Well, that doesn't work for people who are working at the bottom.
It's not the bottom because they're very, very important, but they're working for
practically nothing, and they can't do it consistently, and they can't have a live.
And they have children, and they have obligations, and
they have a house probably in California, and they can't make their mortgage.
So people have some he has to have some compassion.
Nothing is happening to this industry.
AI is not going to kill the industry, it's probably going to kill us.
>> So, James, we only got a couple of minutes left.
And so, there we address the mainstream media's blaming the actors instead
of the executives for the strike,
which is what they do in almost every strike situation.
But if you notice there, Kayleigh McEnany, the Trump's former press secretary on
Fox News, said it's leftist infighting between the actors and
the executives because their thesis is that all of Hollywood is liberal.
In your experience, are the media executives liberal in Hollywood?
>> No, they have only one politic, and
that's the politic of money, that's all the counts.
They have a power, a cachet in this town.
If they have a certain amount of success,
they have power because they have the money that produces the product.
But basically, for them, they would like it in this town
if they could have the movie industry and not make movies,
simply make the deal, and then sit back and let the money roll in.
The messiness of picture making and of what goes into it,
the amount of heart, and perspiration, and care, and concern, and
willingness, and communication is completely over their heads.
That has value and that has to be valued by them, and
they have to understand what it means.
If you try to do a picture without those people, it stinks.
>> Last thing, we had about 15 seconds left.
David Zaslov made $100 million for the last five years on average.
He says there's not enough money in the industry, what do you say back?
>> Yeah, >> [LAUGH] Clear enough.
James Cromwell, always a great guest, thank you for joining us,
we really appreciate it.
And thank you for standing up for all the actors and writers on strike.
We appreciate you.
>> Thank you, same to you.
All the best.