Writers’ strike: UK film and TV workers forced to put homes up for sale due to US action
Out of work British film and TV crew members are being forced to put their homes up for sale as a result of the knock-on effects of striking writers and actors in the US.
Philippa Childs, the head of entertainment union BECTU, said some people are considering changing career.
“I’ve had people saying to me they’re having to sell their house, their cars, we had one of our representatives the other day say she was going to leave the profession because she’d had enough,” she said.
As a result of more than two months of A-lister industrial action, some of the UK’s busiest sound stages are now more like ghost towns.
Elle Moore, 24, an experienced production assistant, has struggled to book any jobs.
“I’ve basically gone from two years of work, to on-off work for summer, to in the last six weeks no work at all. There’s just no work to apply for.”
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Production assistant Elle Moore
With more than two-thirds of the UK’s total film spend coming from the US, the impact of striking Hollywood writers and actors – taking on the studios over issues including AI and repeat residuals – has been severe.
Graham Webb, managing director of construction specialist 4Wood, said: “It’s absolutely brought large parts of the industry to a grinding halt and straight after COVID, that’s difficult.”
Specialists in high-end TV and film, they have relied on theatre and live events to make up for lost work.
Side hustles like providing set storage are a vital revenue stream.
“When it goes quiet and people are fighting for less and less work in the marketplace, that’s unsettling for everyone,” Mr Webb added.
Graham Webb, managing director of construction specialist 4Wood
Fewer projects mean fierce competition to book jobs on British projects that can still shoot and some workers are reporting certain production companies are taking advantage of the situation to undercut established pay rates.
Ms Childs of BECTU added: “The industry shouldn’t be exploiting the situation and they should be paying rates people deserve.”
More than 30,000 people have signed a petition urging the government to consider a furlough-type scheme for those who have been impacted severely because of the precarious nature of the contract work they do.
Ms Childs said: “Our message to the government is they need to put some mechanisms in place for when things are tough because otherwise they’re going to lose skills they desperately need.”
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But the government has said it has no plans to introduce an income replacement scheme, steering freelancers instead to the help already available to delay tax payments to HMRC through its Time to Pay scheme.
Anecdotally, Sky News spoke to multiple highly skilled film and TV workers who said they were now taking temporary work as delivery drivers or in bars just to cover their mounting bills.
For the 100,000 people, employed directly and indirectly in British film, the uncertainty of how long the strikes will last is a terrifying prospect.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
The Salt Path author Raynor Winn’s fourth book has been delayed by her publisher.
It comes amid claims that the author lied about her story in her hit first book. Winn previously described the claims as “highly misleading” and called suggestions that her husband had Moth made up his illness “utterly vile”.
In a statement, Penguin Michael Joseph, said it had delayed the publication of Winn’s latest book On Winter Hill – which had been set for release 23 October.
The publisher said the decision had been made in light of “recent events, in particular intrusive conjecture around Moth’s health”, which it said had caused “considerable distress” to the author and her family.
“It is our priority to support the author at this time,” the publisher said.
“With this in mind, Penguin Michael Joseph, together with the author, has made the decision to delay the publication of On Winter Hill from this October.”
A new release date will be announced in due course, the publisher added.
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Winn’s first book, released in 2018, detailed the journey she and husband took along the South West Coast Path – familiarly known as The Salt Path – after they lost their family farm and Moth received a terminal health diagnosis of Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD).
But a report in The Observer disputed key aspects of the 2018 “true” story – which was recently turned into a film starring Jason Isaacs and Gillian Anderson.
Raynor and husband Moth (centre) with actors Jason Isaacs (L) and Gillian Anderson (R). Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
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As part of the article, published last weekend, The Observer claimed to have spoken to experts who were “sceptical” about elements of Moth’s terminal diagnosis, such as a “lack of acute symptoms and his apparent ability to reverse them”.
In the ensuing controversy, PSPA, a charity that supports people with CBD, cut ties with the couple.
The Observer article also claimed the portrayal of a failed investment in a friend’s business wasn’t true, but said the couple – whose names are Sally and Tim Walker – lost their home after Raynor Winn embezzled money from her employer and had to borrow to pay it back and avoid police action.
Anderson played Winn in a movie about the couple’s journey. Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
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It also said that, rather than being homeless, the couple had owned a house in France since 2007.
Winn’s statement said the dispute with her employer wasn’t the reason the couple lost their home – but admitted she may have made “mistakes” while in the job.
“For me it was a pressured time,” she wrote. “It was also a time when mistakes were being made in the business. Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry.”
She admitted being questioned by police but said she wasn’t charged.
The author also said accusations that Moth lied about having CBD/CBS were false and had “emotionally devastated” him.
“I have charted Moth’s condition with such a level of honesty, that this is the most unbearable of the allegations,” Winn wrote on her website.
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