Just days before SAG-AFTRA went on strike, Deadline published a piece on the writers’ strike and the strategy at play for the studio executives and members of the AMPTP. A studio executive was quoted as saying this: “The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.” Deadline confirmed that strategy with “several other sources.” In Hollywood, it seems the cruelty is the point and this is what they really think about writers and actors, that they should lose their homes if they don’t wordlessly accept the studios’ pennies. Well, it’s started. Billy Porter told the Evening Standard that he’s going to sell his home because he doesn’t have any money coming in:

He won’t talk about his work: “Because of the strike. Child, we got to get our money! But one of the reasons I can’t talk about the strike is because of the s**t that I’ve seen some lay people write about us: ‘Just a bunch of millionaires trying to get more millions.’” It’s different in London. He doesn’t feel “that bile from people who survived a pandemic because they could turn on their television and watch us. And they discard us so quickly. Because they think we’re entitled. Meanwhile, we’re getting six cent cheques. It hurts my feelings”.

On the broken residual system: “In the late Fifties, early Sixties, when they structured a way for artists to be compensated properly through residual [payments], it allowed for the two percent of working actors — and there are 150,000 people in our union — who work consistently…Then streaming came in. There’s no contract for it… And they don’t have to be transparent with the numbers — it’s not Nielsen ratings anymore.. the streaming companies are notoriously opaque with their viewership figures. The business has evolved. So the contract has to evolve,” he says, thumping the table, wobbling his berry bowl, “and change” — thump — “period”.

He has to sell his house: “To hear Bob Iger say that our demands for a living wage are unrealistic? While he makes $78,000 a day? I don’t have any words for it, but: f*** you. That’s not useful, so I’ve kept my mouth shut. I haven’t engaged because I’m so enraged. I’m glad I’ve been over here. But when I go back I will join the picket lines. I have to sell my house.” Really? “Yeah! Because we’re on strike. And I don’t know when we’re gonna go back [to work]. The life of an artist, until you make f***-you money — which I haven’t made yet — is still cheque-to-cheque. I was supposed to be in a new movie, and on a new television show starting in September. None of that is happening. So to the person who said ‘we’re going to starve them out until they have to sell their apartments,’ you’ve already starved me out”.

[From The Evening Standard]

One of the things the actors are doing really well is communicating, very clearly, how the system is broken and how little they’re actually being paid. I’m sure the lesser-known actors have been doing it all along, but the fact that well-known actors like Billy Porter and Mandy Moore are standing with their union and educating the public about the broken residual system, it actually matters. It doesn’t feel like there are many people saying “oh, it’s just a bunch of millionaires crying.” These are working actors, actors who live paycheck to paycheck, actors with long CVs, Emmy Awards and Tony Awards, and they’re selling their homes but still standing with their union. Anyway, if Billy sets up a GoFundMe, I’ll donate.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

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