Most actors are broke – this strike should kill the ‘champagne socialist’ myth dead

When big names walked out of the ‘Oppenheimer’ premiere this week, it signalled the start of historic industrial action in Hollywood. The persistent assumption that acting pays is finally beginning to look less viable, writes Claire Allfree

Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy and Florence Pugh attend the ‘Oppenheimer’ premiere before walking out as the SAG-AFTRA strike was called (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)

This week saw the London premiere for Christopher Nolan’s long-awaited, star-studded new film Oppenheimer. The event had all the usual trappings of a big budget Hollywood opening, except one thing: the cast. After posing for photographers outside Leicester Square Odeon flaunting a sartorial fabulousness worthy of the Oscars, Cillian Murphy (who plays the eponymous American developer of the atom bomb) and his co-stars Florence Pugh, Emily Blunt and Matt Damon left before the screening. The reason? America’s actors’ union SAG-AFTRA was about to call its first strike by members in 40 years.

Given the number of public sector strikes crippling parts of the UK this year, from doctors to teachers to train drivers, you’d be forgiven for not having noticed that America is in the middle of its own wave of industrial action. More specifically Hollywood, which has been partially shuttered since May following strike action by the writers’ union WGA over fair pay and conditions. The move is significant: the last time actors and writers went on strike at the same time was 60 years ago. That both have joined forces once again will have an impact that will be felt in nearly every living room on both sides of the pond. Not only have Hollywood studios had to stop production of major films, so have streaming giants such as Amazon, Disney and Netflix. Major casualties include Deadpool 3 and the new film version of musical Wicked starring Ariana Grande.

There’s an old joke in Hollywood in which one LA producer says to another: “Unfortunately the writer died. But we are still looking for ways to screw him.” Writers traditionally have always been at the bottom of the food chain in the movie-making ecology, an absurdity baked into the studio system since its inception. But actors? They are the stars, the human face of the Hollywood fantasy. Thanks to both the magical make-believe of TV and film and the impossible glamour of premieres and awards season, they embody the essential myth of Hollywood as a separate untouchable universe, a La La Land full of special, beautiful people who don’t live like you and me. So much so that I imagine sympathy for their cause will be in short supply. When off the screen, we tend not to take actors entirely seriously. We regard them as luvvies, champagne socialists living inside gated mansions who like to pontificate on social issues they can’t possibly know anything about.