Actors begin picketing alongside writers in fight over future of Hollywood

They are concerned about the use of artificial intelligence mimicking their work on films and television shows

Striking screen actors will begin picketing alongside writers in New York and Los Angeles on Friday in what has become the biggest Hollywood labour fight in decades.

The double-barreled strike will shut down the small number of productions that continued shooting in the two months since screenwriters stopped working.

Many actors made a show of solidarity on the writers’ picket lines, including Fran Drescher, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) president and former star of “The Nanny”. The union’s 65,000-member actors’ branch will now formally join them as fellow strikers. The two guilds have similar issues with studios and streaming services. They are concerned about contracts keeping up with inflation, residual payments in the streaming era and putting up guardrails against the use of artificial intelligence mimicking their work on film and television shows.

The famous faces of Oscar and Emmy winners will likely be seen with some regularity on picket lines, adding star power to the writers’ demonstrations outside studios and corporate offices.

No talks are planned, and no end is in sight for the work stoppage, the first time both guilds have walked off sets since 1960. During that strike, then-actor Ronald Regan was SAG’s leader.

Drescher delivered a fiery rebuke of studios and streaming services when announcing union leaders’ unanimous vote to strike.

“We had no choice. We are the victims here. We are being victimized by a very greedy entity,” Drescher said. “I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us. I cannot believe it, quite frankly: How they plead poverty, that they’re losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs.” The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers , which represents employers including Disney, Netflix, Amazon and others, has lamented the walkout.