SAG strike: Hollywood actors announce historic walkout

BBC News:

Hollywood actors have announced they will join an ongoing strike by screenwriters in the industry’s biggest shutdown for more than 60 years.

The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) wants streaming giants to agree to a fairer split of profits and better working conditions.

Some 160,000 performers will stop work at midnight.

The stoppage means the vast majority of US film and TV productions will grind to a halt.

Stars Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon and Emily Blunt left the premiere of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer in London on Thursday night as the strike was declared.

The SAG walkout starts at midnight Los Angeles time (08:00 BST). Picketing will begin on Friday morning outside the California headquarters of Netflix, before moving on to Paramount, Warner Bros and Disney.

The union – officially known as the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or SAG-AFTRA – also wants a guarantee that artificial intelligence (AI) and computer-generated faces and voices will not be used to replace actors.

The group representing the studios, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, or AMPTP, slammed the decision.

It said “a strike is certainly not the outcome we hoped for as studios cannot operate without the performers that bring our TV shows and films to life”.

“The union has regrettably chosen a path that will lead to financial hardship for countless thousands of people who depend on the industry,” its statement added.