Hollywood celebs sound off about the SAG-AFTRA strike on social media
While actors are not allowed to promote upcoming films on personal platforms, nothing is stopping them from voicing their support for the strike on social media
SAG-AFTRA is on strike for the first time since the 80s, which means even Hollywood’s biggest stars have officially walked out of their premieres and taken to the picket lines. While actors are not allowed to promote any upcoming films even on their own social media profiles per the rules of the strike, there is certainly nothing stopping them from voicing their support for the union on the same platform.
In addition to some stars like George Clooney who have made official statements to the press and others like those on the Oppenheimer red carpet—one of the last before everything shut down—who used their short time in front of the mic to express their solidarity with the labor movement, many, many others have taken to Twitter and Instagram to add their voices to the mix. Here’s what some of them had to say.
Jaime Lee Curtis and Michael Rapaport got creative with a fun collage and swear-y video respectively. Curtis captioned her collage—which consists of a series of screenshots from The Bear’s “Fishes”—“The @sagaftra symbol used to be the masks of the actors face. REPRESENTING the EXPRESSIONS. The EMOTIONS. The FEELINGS generated by the WORDS of their UNION MEMBERS! Union contracts PROTECT our SAFETY and EXPLOITATION! We are UNION STRONG!” while Rapaport ended his video with a call to arms: “Strike, motherfucker!”
Yvette Nicole Brown and Josh Gad shouted out some of the other industries that stand to benefit from the strike, namely LA’s styrofoam, cardboard, stick, and duct tape companies.
Samantha and Miranda weighed in:
Others, like Mark Ruffalo, Octavia Spencer, Padma Lakshmi, Jessica Chastain, James Cromwell, and Patton Oswalt spoke directly to the rhetoric coming from SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher and other guild officials. Patton Oswalt specifically called out the shocking revelation from yesterday’s press conference that AMPTP proposed to scan a background actor’s likeness to use in perpetuity for one day of pay.
Glen Powell and John Cusack both shared past hardships they experienced as working actors. Keke Palmer took a moment to mention writers’ and actors’ families as well.
But it is perhaps Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Clark Gregg who said it best: “I feel like we are moving from the Great Fucking Around into the Finding of Out.”