Hollywood strike: Hollywood will grind to a complete halt as actors and writers both walk out – it could last for months
Writers have been treading the pavements with picket signs outside the Netflix building in Hollywood for two months now.
The midday sun is punishing but they stride on – some wearing headphones, others chatting with friends.
Every couple of minutes, a passing motorist beeps their horn in support.
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What’s behind Hollywood actors’ strike?
A huge cheer erupts as they hear news that the actors will soon be joining them on the picket line.
They know a walkout of 98,000 members of SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, makes their strike action even more impactful.
In total, an estimated 160,000 actors and performers are expected to take part.
Production had been limping along in a small number of shows and films which were already written.
This dual strike, the first for 63 years, means the entertainment industry will grind to a complete halt almost immediately.
Without writers and actors, very little can be achieved.
“We didn’t want it to come to this,” Michele Mulroney, the Writers Guild of America vice president, tells me, “We would rather be practising the craft we love of writing and acting. But unfortunately the studios have been unwilling to seriously consider the existential needs of our two memberships. The Screen Actors Guild has been standing with the Writers Guild since day one, and we will now stand with them.”
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SAG-AFTRA said the industrial action – which is being held amid anger over pay, conditions and concerns over the use of artificial intelligence (AI) – begins on Friday morning.
The union also warned no date for its end has been set.
As the strike was announced, stars including Matt Damon walked out of the London premiere of historical epic Oppenheimer to “write their picket signs”, the film’s director Christopher Nolan said.
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The last time a dual strike happened Marilyn Monroe was staring in films. It is a watershed moment for the industry and it heaps pressure on the production studios and streaming giants to try and find a solution.
One of the main sticking points in negotiations were residual payments, a form of royalties, which actors say are inadequate, especially since the streamers became the dominant force in the industry.
“We’re being squeezed and squeezed and squeezed,” one picketer told me.
Another fear is the rise of artificial intelligence and the concern that an actor’s digital likeness could be used without their knowledge.
“AI just doesn’t belong in Hollywood, especially not in a writer’s room,” actor Jeante Godlock says. “All the TV shows that we watch, that we love, those one liners, they came from humans, and they came from human trauma, honestly. All the pain, the joy. It’s what we love to watch.”
The strike also means the red carpet events, the press junkets and the film premieres will stop – almost overnight. If it continues for weeks or even months, as many here think it will, the impact on the local economy could amount to billions of dollars.
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I ask John Patrick Daley, an actor, how long he’s willing to be on strike. “As long as it takes, I’m an actor,” he says, “You chose the wrong group to mess with in terms of not being employed because we are good at this.”
It is clear from the rhetoric that both sides remain very far apart on key issues. Hollywood is still recovering from the pandemic and an economic crisis. It is an uncomfortable time for workers and for the studio. It will now be a case of who blinks first.
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Joy star James Norton on the ‘postcode lottery’ of IVF – and playing the scientist who was part of creating the first ‘test-tube baby’
Actor James Norton, who stars in a new film telling the story of the world’s first “test-tube baby”, has criticised how “prohibitively expensive” IVF can be in the UK.
In Joy, the star portrays the real-life scientist Bob Edwards, who – along with obstetrician Patrick Steptoe and embryologist Jean Purdy – spent a decade tirelessly working on medical ways to help infertility.
The film charts the 10 years leading up to the birth of Louise Joy Brown, who was dubbed the world’s first test-tube baby, in 1978.
In the UK, statistics show the proportion of IVF cycles paid for by the NHS has dropped from 40% to 27% in the last decade
Norton, who is best known for playing Tommy Lee Royce in the BAFTA-winning series Happy Valley, told Sky News he has friends who were IVF babies and other friends who have had their own children thanks to the fertility treatment.
“But I didn’t know about these three scientists and their sacrifice, tenacity and skill,” he said. The star hopes the film will be “a catalyst for conversation” about the treatment and its availability.
“We know for a fact that Jean, Bob and Patrick would not have liked the fact that IVF is now so means based,” he said. “It’s prohibitively expensive for some… and there is a postcode lottery which means that some people are precluded from that opportunity.”
Bill Nighy, Thomasin McKenzie and James Norton star in Joy. All pics: Netflix/ Kerry Brown
Now, IVF is considered a wonder of modern medicine. More than 12 million people owe their existence today to the treatment Edwards, Steptoe and Purdy worked so hard to devise.
But Joy shows how public backlash in the years leading up to Louise’s birth saw the team vilified – accused of playing God and creating “Frankenstein babies”.
Bill Nighy and Thomasin McKenzie star alongside Norton, with the script written by acclaimed screenwriter Jack Thorne and his wife Rachel Mason.
The couple went through seven rounds of IVF themselves to conceive their son.
Norton portrays scientist Bob Edwards, while McKenzie plays embryologist Jean Purdy
While the film is set in the 1970s, the reality is that societal pressures haven’t changed all that much for many going through IVF today – with the costs now both emotional and financial.
“IVF is still seen as a luxury product, as something that some people get access to and others don’t,” said Thorne, speaking about their experiences in the UK.
“Louise was a working-class girl with working-class parents. Working class IVF babies are very, very rare now.”
In the run-up to the US election, Donald Trump saw IVF as a campaigning point – promising his government, or insurance companies, would pay for the treatment for all women should he be elected. He called himself the “father of IVF” at a campaign event – a remark described as “quite bizarre” by Kamala Harris.
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“I don’t think Trump is a blueprint for this,” Norton said. “I don’t know how that fits alongside his questions around pro-choice.”
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In the UK, statistics from fertility regulator HEFA show the proportion of IVF cycles paid for by the NHS has dropped from 40% to 27% in the last decade.
“It’s so expensive,” Norton said. “Those who want a child should have that choice… and some people’s lack of access to this incredibly important science actually means that people don’t have the choice.”
Joy is in UK cinemas from 15 November, and on Netflix from 22 November
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