Cynthia Nixon, Wanda Sykes, and many more take to 30 Rock and speak amid writers' strike

“Nothing exists without writing. I don’t care if a computer spits out something. It’s not inspired, like you get from the writers. We must value it because we’re being devalued, making less money, and young writers can’t learn. This is the time for them to learn from the writers’ room. I feel strongly about that.I’ve been so touched by looking up at this building where I learned to write [on SNL] and made my living for many years, learning how to write a comedy. I want every writer who is young, of my age, and in between to be able to make a living in this incredible craft. We’re all born with these crazy brains, and I don’t want machines taking over that because some people care only about quantity and not quality.”Pell confirmed to The A.V. Club that , has finished filming. “It’s a relief, but we would’ve happily stopped if we needed to. But we were blessed in our timing and could get it out.”

“30 Rock is a legendary place where TV gets made. There’s literally a TV show named after it. It’s one of the few addresses everyone knows and associates with NBC and TV production, so getting everyone here gives the rally a special energy…We’re here because we’re fighting for what’s right and what’s fair, it’s part of the fabric of the same fight of workers vs. corporatism. We’re fighting for the future of writing as a sustainable profession. I think that’s been reported responsibly, but I don’t know if the message has hit home with people who have no connection to this. The strike is about the people who want to keep writing and people who should be brought in but don’t have a strong foothold in the industry yet. We’re trying to keep traditionally marginalized groups from being squeezed out because the studios are trying to earn writing into a gig economy job,” Gondelman told The A.V. Club.

“We’re demanding for the AMPTP to take less than 2% of their massive profits and distribute them among the people who are creating the content, to begin with. Make no mistake, this refusal to come to the bargaining table is a bid to turn TV and film writing into a freelance position.”

“We’ve got to figure out streaming residuals. What I think is getting lost is we’re not asking for more money; we’re asking for money we are owed. We are owed money via residuals. The companies have designed a way via streaming not to pay us. … We’re asking for a deal from the studios that will allow us to share the successes of the art we create that makes writing a sustainable career. I used the word art instead of content, and normally, any actor that would use the word art would make me roll my eyes, but these companies are calling what we do content in order to devalue it because they think it can be created by AI. And we need to make sure we keep treating art as both a reflection of our human soul and also as the result of real labor that deserves fair compensation.”Philipps closed out her speech with a slew of jokes on David Zaslav, the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, one of the studio heads responsible for holding up a fair contract. She thanked the WGA writers who came up with these zingers, including writers from Late Night, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, her Girls5eva co-star Pell, Ike Barinholtz, and Simran Baidwan. It would be criminal not to publish some of these: “In the words of David Zaslav, as an actor, I’m so glad to be here with all you difficult people I have to get along with.”

“It makes sense that you’ve forgotten the meaning of words. That’s what happens when you devalue writers [is] you lose language. We are writers, we know what words mean. We know the difference between truth and malevolent, cynical self-serving horse shit. … Take a look at yourselves in the mirror and AMPTP, by which I mean, take a look at your grotesquely bloated bank accounts and stock portfolios and ask yourself what the WGA along with all of sane civilization is asking you: What the living fuck is the matter with you, AMPTP? How much money do you really need?”

“We shouldn’t have to be out here doing this, but I am so proud to see so many faces. And these faces, it’s a lot different than what it was back in 2007 because of how rooms have changed. I see so many women, young women. I see so many brown faces, I see my Asian brothers and sisters out here. It’s beautiful. … It really is about the survival of our industry right now, the survival of our craft, if we don’t get this deal that we need, right? I just look around and I can see all these different faces, and we get to tell our stories, we get to hear your stories, right? It’s not just from that straight white guy perspective anymore.”

“Writing is the recording of the human spirit. We reflect the human experience. And right when stories written by women, Black writers, trans writers, and queer writers are starting to emerge, they want to hire robots to mine stories from the past 100 years. They did not expect the Writers Guild to have the visibility that we are claiming. They did not expect the labor movement to be at a point where the majority of people could see the connection and intersection. This strike is about fighting against the dehumanizing of writers.”

“As writers, it feels strange to come together like this and realize that we despise someone more than we despised ourselves already. … CEOs cannot write scripts. Shareholders cannot write scripts. Studio executives cannot write scripts as evidenced by the notes they give us on our scripts…Some companies like Disney have done a lot on diversity and inclusion and we want to support them in the free speech challenges they face in places like Florida. But when big media companies are unwilling to negotiate a fair contract, when they refuse to pay their writers fairly, and when they reject reasonable professional protections, their actions have shown the world that perhaps they don’t actually value equity, their marketing executives just like to tweet about it. … The contract that we’re demanding [addresses] serious and disproportionate implications for Black writers, Indigenous writers, and writers of color. Many rooms tend to lock out new talent, especially writers from our communities who are trying to break into the writers’ room. That’s why the WGA has offered proposals to ensure that writers are not stuck at the same staffing level. So make no mistake. This is not about their performative tweets or what they’re posting during a particular month of the year. This is a once-in-a-lifetime decision point for our industry when it comes to addressing systemic barriers to entry and advancements.”

“Shortly before the strike happened, a friend of mine who had been in the writers’ room for 3-4 shows but who had never been on a set sent me a message. She said, “I’m angry with the WGA. Their strike decision has crashed things for young, mid-career writers, those without connections or blind luck are shafted.” I wrote back: “Everything the WGA is asking is for young, mid-career writers. We want to limit mini rooms to get writers on shows [for] longer and [to] on-set experience so you can be the next generation of showrunners and not be shuffled off to one side after a few weeks. Right now, corporate TV profits are gargantuan and writers’ pay opportunities are dropping. This negotiation isn’t about getting a few more points on residuals, it’s about opening opportunities to younger, more vulnerable writers.”

“In 1975, Tom Davis and I got a job at a show that was somewhere around here. Oh there [pointing up to 30 Rock] at SNL. We were hired, the two of us, as one apprentice. We were paid $300 a week. Not each. We split it. The next time we went on strike, we made sure that didn’t happen. Some of the stuff I wrote, I wrote 47 years ago. But how many people get residual checks for a penny? You get those from years when we had bad contracts. This is part of what it’s all about, these negotiations are about making sure we can earn a living wage.”

“The moment that the nation has been waiting for with David Zaslav. Today is the day HBO Max becomes Max. Can you feel the electricity in the air? They said America couldn’t do it, but we finally did it. We came up with a name dumber than Quibi. Who is signing up for it now that it’s just Max? That tells me something. That tells me the struggle over naming it tells me that people don’t care about the name. They care about the shows on the service that people aren’t looking for HBO Max or a Max. They’re not looking for the streaming service that’s run by David Zaslav. They’re looking for the shows that writers and artists create… And so if you desperately want your favorite late-night shows’ take on something in the news that we’ve missed, something like George Santos getting indicted or Rudy Giuliani ordering Viagra by the pallet or whatever, tell the AMPTP to give us a fair contract.”

“The reason I’m here is because I was one of four writers who That’s right. Four of us, only four of us, shut down because we were able to picket for eight hours straight. And because it was just four of us, the only reason we succeeded is because the teamsters and the IATSE crew members refused to cross our picket line the whole night. So I learned a very valuable lesson that night. The other unions are willing and ready to stand in solidarity with us. All we have to do is turn up and form a picket line…Now, before I go, before I go, I just wanted this opportunity to remind everyone here that it’s not just writers who are hurting in the strike. It’s not just writers right now. There are so many innocent victims in the industry who are also being adversely affected by the greed of the producers. … We understand their frustration. We also understand their deep anger towards us, but also tell them that this is the fastest way that we can get everyone back to work because the only language that producers understand is money. And so we have to communicate to them by shutting down as many productions as we can.”

“The strike is different because the membership is unified and mobilized. We’re all in this together. The strike is different because of the tremendous support we’re getting from other guilds. Here today, the studios have lost the narrative. Writers are writing the strike step by step every day. It could be long, it will be filled with jeopardy, crushed, hope, betrayal, stupid red herrings—that’s what we do on . But in the end, if we stick together with our fellow unions, I think this is true, there will be probably just in the nick of time, right after the catharsis, there will be a happy ending for the good guys.”