A Times Reporter on the SAG-AFTRA Actors’ Strike and Hollywood’s Future

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It was around 1 a.m. one Thursday last month when Brooks Barnes received the email he’d been waiting up for.

“SAG-AFTRA TELEVISION, THEATRICAL AND STREAMING CONTRACTS EXPIRE WITHOUT A DEAL,” read the subject line on the email, sent by a union representative.

Movie studios and unionized actors failed to reach a deal after weeks of negotiations. Hours later, members of SAG-AFTRA’s national board voted to strike, and tens of thousands of actors joined the screenwriters already on the picket lines over issues including pay. The decision brought film and television productions to a standstill and left the fate of Hollywood hanging in the balance.

“When something big like this happens, you just have to put down everything else you’re working on,” said Mr. Barnes, a reporter who covers Hollywood for The New York Times.

In an interview, he shared his thoughts on Hollywood’s first industrywide shutdown in more than 60 years and on how the repercussions may be coming to a theater near you. This interview has been edited.

What do unionized actors want?

There’s a long list of things; their proposals are detailed and specific, down to what a background dancer gets paid for rehearsal time, for example. But the main sticking point is that actors want residual payments from streaming services.

In the traditional model, actors would get paid for the work that they do on a TV show or movie; they would get paid residuals once that show or movie was resold as a rerun on TV. Sometimes the residual money could be huge, depending on a show’s popularity.

In the streaming era, that model has changed. Actors still get paid a residual for streaming work. But it’s essentially a flat fee. Actors want those payments to be based on a show’s popularity — more for a hit like “Stranger Things,” for example, and less for something that flops.

The other big sticking point is artificial intelligence. Actors want guardrails so their likenesses will not be reused digitally without their approval and a payment.

Using an actor’s likeness without their consent makes me think of a recent “Black Mirror” episode, in which characters’ likenesses were used in bizarre ways without their permission.

That’s exactly what this is about, but it’s also to protect background actors. In a crowd scene, they might scan a background actor’s likeness and reuse it in another movie just to populate the scene. It doesn’t have to be Salma Hayek or Tom Cruise.

How does the writers’ strike fit into all this?

The writers are on strike for similar issues, including residual payments. Writers are also looking for a type of quota system; they want studios to staff a writers’ room with a minimum number of writers. Streaming services often use minirooms, a type of writers’ room used early in the show-development process that involves half as many writers. Basically, they’re doing much of the same work with fewer people. The union wants protections against those job cuts.

How soon will we see the repercussions of the actors’ strike?

Viewers won’t see too many repercussions for a while because the assembly pipelines work so far in advance; a lot of upcoming TV series and films are already finished. But some big movies planned for Christmas have been pushed to next year, and the fall TV schedule will be heavy on reality shows and reruns. Actors are also not allowed to promote any of the work that they have already finished. And that’s crucial to studios; they want actors on talk shows and podcasts to promote their projects.

You recently wrote about a factor that’s contributing to the strikes: the absence of a power broker to help mediate.

Yes, the last Hollywood strike took place in 2007-8. In those days, it was a simpler business; Netflix was mostly an indie company and had just begun streaming. Back then, there were studio elders and senior statesmen who could come in and say, OK, let’s iron this out and get back to work. That kind of person doesn’t exist so much anymore.

Why not?

Companies just have different cultures and priorities — a Netflix versus a Disney versus an Apple. The other reason is some of the studio executives who could mediate have had problems. Bob Iger, Disney’s chief executive, has become a bit of a villain for comments he made about the strike on CNBC, so he’s not really the greatest person to generate trust. You need someone whom both sides trust, respect and will listen to.

I wonder about your thoughts on the success of “Barbenheimer” at the box office. It feels bittersweet.

It’s exciting to know that Hollywood can still deliver these kinds of cultural thunderclaps, but the reality is the reality: The hits are few and far between. And it’s hard to feel very good about the business when hundreds of thousands of people are on strike or impacted by the strikes.