On Friday, I mentioned a meeting between some A-list actors and the leadership of the SAG-AFTRA union. The purpose of this meeting was to, among other things, put forward a proposal to restructure residual payments and remove the dues cap for high-earning actors, in the hopes of “closing the gap” between the guild’s compensation asks in their negotiations with the AMPTP. Now, more details about that meeting are coming out, but the actors need to be careful here, because whatever their intentions, they are essentially handing a discord narrative to the AMPTP and its messengers on a silver platter.
The most reasonable coverage of this meeting and the proposals—apparently Ben Affleck wrote the bit about the residuals—has so far come from The Hollywood Reporter, which at least makes an attempt to not come across like absolute AMPTP lapdogs. Deadline, not so much. Their coverage is enraging, a blatant attempt to skew the reporting so that it looks like this meeting between the A-listers and SAG leadership is not only a sign of division within the ranks, but also the strike dragging on for 100+ days is the guild’s fault.
Basically, what is coming across is that the A-listers want to promote their Oscar bait. I said it before—the actors are getting itchy. Awards season is upon us, and they want to participate. George Clooney has a historical underdog sports drama coming out in December, The Boys in the Boat. Ben Affleck can’t do For Your Consideration events for Air (which almost guarantees it will get lost in the shuffle). Emma Stone can’t promote Poor Things. Ryan Reynolds just saw Deadpool 3 lose its 2024 release date as production remains stalled. These people have undoubtedly somewhat selfish motivations.
But there are two ways to look at this. One is dissension in the ranks, actors angry at their leadership, Fran Drescher especially, which is certainly how the trades—most of which are owned by a company affiliated with AMPTP—are certainly spinning it. THR explicitly calls into question Drescher’s leadership in a very sexist way. The other way to look at it, though, is that the top-earning actors, the ones with, let’s face it, less on the line than their gigging peers, are looking for creative solutions to jumpstart stalled talks. That’s probably how the actors WANT it to appear, and if so, they need to wrest back control of the messaging.
Because the THR piece includes details about Drescher’s actions during negotiations meant to embarrass her and paint her as an ineffective leader, such as repeating Buddhist inspirational quotes. Even though the article does mention that the A-listers are working their studio contacts, too, there are no such details about Bob Iger, David Zaslav, or any studio head. Indeed, the article begins by mentioning that Iger is the one who picked up the phone to restart talks. A hero, indeed!
Giving these A-listers—most of whom are male—the benefit of the doubt, I don’t think they 1) wanted any of this aired in public, and 2) meant for it to look so paternalistic and even chastising toward Drescher. Two things can be true—they want to get back to work, especially to promote their Oscar movies, but they don’t want to screw over their peers who aren’t millionaires (or hundred-millionaires). But if that is true, if they DIDN’T mean this to be a tacit attack on Drescher and an underhanded way of applying pressure to their own guild to end the strike as soon as possible, then they need to figure out how to regain control of the narrative. They can’t do it through the trades because they’re untrustworthy, and most of these people aren’t the types to take to social media.
Except for Ryan Reynolds. A-listers have been scarce on the picket lines because they’re a distraction, they’re recognizable to the public, but we also know they’re rich. They’re not really going to be impacted by whatever comes out of this strike. It’s the gigging actors and the struggling up-and-comers who will see the most benefit. But Ryan Reynolds is popular, he’s funny, he’s good at public messaging. He’s a marketing guru disguised as a Hollywood actor. It might be time to deploy Deadpool for the benefit of the union, if not on a picket line, then in one of his trademark funny social media posts, to clarify the A-listers’ support for the union, and Fran Drescher as negotiations resume this week.
Otherwise, the call IS coming from inside the house, and it is true—money makes management of us all.
