During the London Equity actor’s rally, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One star Hayley Atwell admitted that Hollywood “is an industry on its knees.”
As the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) actors strike enters its second week, members of their United Kingdom counterpart Equity including Succession star Brian Cox, Mission: Impossible star Hayley Atwell, and Selma star David Oyelowo came out in solidarity in London’s Leicester Square.
Despite declaring unwavering solidarity with their American counterpart since the strike started, the UK anti-trade union laws state that “SAG-AFTRA members currently working under an Equity UK collective bargaining agreement should continue to report to work.”
Nevertheless, Equity General Secretary Paul Fleming told Deadline “we are not going to have the UK used as a backdoor to undermine SAG-AFTRA’s dispute.”
During an interview with Deadline at the Equity London rally, Succession star Brian Cox discussed the significance of residuals for SAG-AFTRA.
“SAG is an excellent union but in the U.S. we don’t have a national health service so what is important to SAG actors is health and they need that,” the X2: X-Men United star told Deadline. “That’s why they need their residuals.”
Backing the The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim star’s claim was Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One star Hayley Atwell who quoted research to Deadline which claimed that a shocking “87% of SAG-AFTRA members don’t earn enough to qualify for health insurance.”
“There is an illusion that if you are seen on telly then you’re fine but for most people that is not the case,” the Captain Carter star told Deadline. “This is not an industry that is thriving it is an industry on its knees.”
The Lion Guard star David Oyelowo then expanded on Cox’s statement by discussing the growing inequality in Hollywood, “The gap between the haves and the haves not in our industry is widening at an alarming rate. The business has continued to evolve and the means of remunerating the people who actually make the stuff isn’t catching up with the evolution.”
What do you make of Atwell’s comments regarding about Hollywood?
NEXT: Report: SAG-AFTRA Strike Costing Studios “About $600,000 Per Week”