Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 1: Bunjelung Calcottin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Speaker 1: Straight Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Speaker 2: Good morning, and welcome to the Daily os. It's Monday,
Speaker 2: the seventeenth of July. I'm Sam Kazlowski.
Speaker 3: I'm Zara Seidler.
Speaker 2: The Union for Hollywood Actors has gone on strike for
Speaker 2: the first time in forty three years.
Speaker 4: One hundred and sixty thousand performers from TV and film
Speaker 4: will now join scriptwriters on picket lines as production of
Speaker 4: TV shows and movies suddenly grind to a halt.
Speaker 3: What this effectively means is that Hollywood as we know
Speaker 3: it is at a stand still.
Speaker 2: Both writers and actors say the transition to streaming has
Speaker 2: affected their financial security and healthcare.
Speaker 3: Before we get there, and I am they're very excited
Speaker 3: for Lucy's debut on the podcast. There was a by
Speaker 3: election on the weekend.
Speaker 2: The Coalition have retained the Queensland seat of Fadden after
Speaker 2: a by election on Saturday following the resignation of former
Speaker 2: Minister Stuart Robert. The Liberal National Party will hold the
Speaker 2: seat with about a two point four percent margin, which
Speaker 2: is a seven point six percent reduction from its previous
Speaker 2: margin of ten percent. Cameron Caldwell will be the new member.
Speaker 3: The US Federal Trade Commission has launched an investigation into
Speaker 3: chat GPT. The Washington Post says the Commission will examine
Speaker 3: if its owner OpenAI has engaged in deceptive or unfair practices.
Speaker 3: It will also look into chat gbt's capacity to generate
Speaker 3: false information.
Speaker 2: Nearly one third of the population of the US are
Speaker 2: currently under heat warnings after record temperatures were documented across
Speaker 2: the country. An all time high of forty eight degrees
Speaker 2: celsius was recorded in Arizona, with Las Vegas nearing its
Speaker 2: all time higher forty seven degrees. Is addicted to hit
Speaker 2: fifty four degrees in California's Death Valley in the next
Speaker 2: few days, which would be one of the hottest temperatures
Speaker 2: ever recorded on the entire planet.
Speaker 3: And the good news effective immediately, there will now be
Speaker 3: equal prize money for men and women at all international
Speaker 3: cricket events, including at World Cup tournaments. That is some
Speaker 3: good news for your Monday.
Speaker 2: Lucy Tassel, Welcome to your podcast debut.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: It's so fun to have you in front of the
Speaker 2: mic because you actually work on the podcast every single day.
Speaker 2: Behind the mic. You're our full time fact checker, so
Speaker 2: you are the last line of defense before something goes
Speaker 2: out on TDA, whether it's on Instagram or newsletter or podcast,
Speaker 2: to make sure it's actually true. But today you're on
Speaker 2: the pod because you live and breathe this topic. What
Speaker 2: are we going to talk about today?
Speaker 5: Today we're talking about the actors strike. I love this
Speaker 5: story and I would say that if you are the
Speaker 5: sort of person like me, someone who loves movies and
Speaker 5: TV and is interested in how they get made, this
Speaker 5: is the biggest story of the week.
Speaker 2: Said the scene for me. When did this strike begin?
Speaker 5: This strike began Thursday midnight LA time, so early Friday
Speaker 5: morning our time, and in London at the UK premiere
Speaker 5: of the upcoming film Oppenheimer.
Speaker 2: Mister Chris Nolan film, Right That's.
Speaker 5: Right, which I'm very excited to see. At that premiere,
Speaker 5: which was about five pm last Thursday, London time. The
Speaker 5: actors were starting to get nervous on the red carpet
Speaker 5: because they knew that the strike was about to happen.
Speaker 5: They were being asked questions by journalists about will you
Speaker 5: support the strike, how do.
Speaker 3: You feel about an actor strike?
Speaker 5: And when do you think they might see a resolution
Speaker 5: to because I know it's kind of ominous.
Speaker 2: At this point.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm not in the room, so I can't say
Speaker 3: when you see a resolution to it, but I got
Speaker 3: to say that, you know, collective bargaining only works if
Speaker 3: the collective is involved uniformly.
Speaker 5: The actors in that film said yes, because they are
Speaker 5: all in the Actors' Union, which is called sag AFTRA.
Speaker 5: It's a very powerful employment body. Pretty Much any Hollywood
Speaker 5: actor you've ever heard of is in sag AFTRA. One
Speaker 5: of the actors in Oppenheimer, Matt Damon, who we would
Speaker 5: all know, said that he was really keen to support
Speaker 5: the strike to help out lower income actors. What we
Speaker 5: would be striking for if we strike is unbelievably important.
Speaker 3: We had to protect with people who were kind of.
Speaker 5: On the margins. So the actors. Once the strike was
Speaker 5: authorized at midnight, La time five pm ish London time.
Speaker 5: The actors walked straight off the red carpet and they
Speaker 5: didn't stay for the movie because one of the conditions
Speaker 5: of the strike is that you're not allowed to promote anything.
Speaker 5: No more promo appearances for that film by the actors.
Speaker 5: So the director of the film, Chris Nolan, inside the
Speaker 5: theater right before the movie started he had to kind
Speaker 5: of explain to the audience. Normally the actors would be
Speaker 5: up here with me, but they've just walked off. They're
Speaker 5: going to go and stay preparing their picket science because
Speaker 5: they're now on strike.
Speaker 2: I want to go deeper on why they're striking and
Speaker 2: what has kind of led up to this moment. But
Speaker 2: before we get there, one of the comments on our
Speaker 2: Instagram when we put it up on Friday was boohoo,
Speaker 2: poor millionaires. And there's this sense of why are we
Speaker 2: spending time on this podcast talking about changing rights and
Speaker 2: contracts for these multimillionaire actors. Why should we care about
Speaker 2: this story.
Speaker 5: I can totally understand that perception, because for most of us,
Speaker 5: our only understanding of the people in show business would
Speaker 5: be the big stars would be your Margo, Robbie's, You're
Speaker 5: Matt Damon's You're Ryan Goslings. All of those people are
Speaker 5: just a tiny fraction of who the Actor's Union actually
Speaker 5: represents though. So SAG AFTRA represents one hundred and sixty
Speaker 5: thousand people, So that includes actors, that includes some radio personalities, dancers,
Speaker 5: stuff people, extras, well we don't call them extras anymore.
Speaker 5: They're called background performers. Puppeteers are included on SAG's website.
Speaker 5: I was very charmed by that. But that's a huge
Speaker 5: number of people, a tiny fraction of whom you would
Speaker 5: know who would be big names. But anyone who makes
Speaker 5: from one hundred dollars for a day on set to
Speaker 5: one hundred thousand dollars for a day on set are
Speaker 5: all covered by SAG, and they're all impacted by industry changes,
Speaker 5: and they're all on strike together.
Speaker 2: So we have this moment in London where actors literally
Speaker 2: walk off the red carpet because this strike has come
Speaker 2: into play. Now give me a sense of what the
Speaker 2: strike is actually in relation to why are they so angry?
Speaker 5: There's two big things that I would say this strike
Speaker 5: is broadly about. So the first one is the rise
Speaker 5: of streaming. The second one is AI. I mean those
Speaker 5: feel like the two biggest stories in entertainment in this century.
Speaker 5: That doesn't feel like an overstatement. So first streaming. Streaming
Speaker 5: has changed the entertainment industry so completely that I start
Speaker 5: to wonder if we could ever go back to a
Speaker 5: pre Netflix world. And it has only happened really in
Speaker 5: the last ten years. Like I was really struck recently.
Speaker 5: I looked up when Orange Is the New Black was
Speaker 5: first put on Netflix, and it was ten years ago, So
Speaker 5: ten years or so since TV pretty much changed forever
Speaker 5: when Netflix started producing its own content and pivoted from
Speaker 5: selling DVDs by mail to people in the US to
Speaker 5: becoming the global streaming giant that everyone has in their
Speaker 5: homes or now has to have in their homes because
Speaker 5: of the passwords sharing, backdown account and you know, oh,
Speaker 5: we've all been kicked off. So streaming had one really
Speaker 5: huge change that has had all these other ripple effects.
Speaker 5: So to understand this, you have to understand how actors
Speaker 5: used to make money. For example, say you're Jennifer Aniston
Speaker 5: on Friends. You're on a long running major TV show
Speaker 5: that produces twenty two episodes a year for ten years.
Speaker 5: You might work thirty weeks out of that year working
Speaker 5: on that show. Anytime that you're not on the set
Speaker 5: of that show, you're getting paid for the episodes being
Speaker 5: aired on TV. In streaming, that's not necessarily how it works.
Speaker 5: When those early streaming shows were being made, the contracts
Speaker 5: for the actors were set up under an old contract
Speaker 5: system that was designed to cover things like short YouTube videos,
Speaker 5: where you would pay an actor who was in the
Speaker 5: union to appear in your short YouTube series, which I.
Speaker 2: Guess was the closest thing to it at the time.
Speaker 5: Yes, that contract was not set up for the Netflix
Speaker 5: world because they didn't know what that was going to
Speaker 5: look like. Yeah, of course, But that leads us to
Speaker 5: an ongoing problem where someone like Jennifer Aniston still makes
Speaker 5: a huge amount of money from Friends being played on
Speaker 5: TV and a small amount of money from Friends being
Speaker 5: put on streaming platform. But if you are, for example,
Speaker 5: an actor from Oranges The New Black, which ran for
Speaker 5: six seasons on Netflix, and you're in pretty much every
Speaker 5: episode of that show, you're only getting paid the small
Speaker 5: amount that it was agreed was fair under the original
Speaker 5: streaming content contract. So one of the actresses from Orange
Speaker 5: is The New Black, Camiko Glenn posted a video to
Speaker 5: Instagram where she shared her residuals for forty four episodes
Speaker 5: of Oranges and New.
Speaker 4: Black Gold be so rude.
Speaker 5: And it amounted to about twenty seven dollars. What and
Speaker 5: one of the ripple effects of that is that, because
Speaker 5: as we all know, the American healthcare system is very
Speaker 5: complicated to say the least, many people's healthcare is tied
Speaker 5: to their employment. That is true for actors in the US.
Speaker 5: So if you're in SAG, you have to earn a
Speaker 5: minimum of twenty six thousand dollars in order to access healthcare.
Speaker 2: Obviously harder to make if you're a streaming star or
Speaker 2: a streaming professional. Now that was for TV exactly. Now
Speaker 2: let's turn to AI. So AI is the other destabilizing
Speaker 2: factor that is being incorporated into these contract negotiations. What's
Speaker 2: the core issue here?
Speaker 5: So this relates back to background actors that we touched
Speaker 5: on a little bit before. So the lead negotiator for
Speaker 5: SAG after he's a man named Duncan Crabtree, Ireland, lovely name,
Speaker 5: beautiful name. He said that the studios pitched SAG an
Speaker 5: offer in their contract negotiations relating to AI.
Speaker 6: They proposed that our background performers should be able to
Speaker 6: be scanned, get paid for one day's pay, and their
Speaker 6: company should own that scan, their image, their likeness, and
Speaker 6: should be able to use it for the rest of
Speaker 6: eternity in any project they want, with no consent and
Speaker 6: no compensation. So if you think that's a groundbreaking proposal,
Speaker 6: I suggest you think again.
Speaker 5: That really speaks to a major ongoing issue if that
Speaker 5: were to become the case where background actors could be
Speaker 5: paid for one day's work and their likeness used in perpetuity.
Speaker 5: Not only is it concerning because these studios wouldn't have
Speaker 5: to ask for people's consent to be used in the
Speaker 5: background of any scene imaginable, it also takes away like
Speaker 5: the bottom rung of the ladder, it's just that much
Speaker 5: harder to get into the industry. Major actors, people like
Speaker 5: Leonardo DiCaprio got their start as background actors, So that's
Speaker 5: a major concern that sag after it has to protect
Speaker 5: its actors.
Speaker 2: So essentially, the actors are asking for more compensation and
Speaker 2: a bit more security around their jobs to account for
Speaker 2: these huge changes in the landscape. What are the media
Speaker 2: companies saying in response to all of this.
Speaker 5: So the rise of streaming has also had impacts on
Speaker 5: major media and entertainment companies. Sure it has impacted their
Speaker 5: short term profits. There are things that it is much
Speaker 5: more expensive to do in the streaming landscape, like, for example,
Speaker 5: run a streaming platform. If you're a movie studio that
Speaker 5: previously was just releasing movies, running a streaming platform, hosting content,
Speaker 5: producing original content that goes on. All of these things
Speaker 5: incur costs in a way that's more complicated than simply
Speaker 5: we make a movie, we release a movie, we get
Speaker 5: our ticket money back. That is added to the cost
Speaker 5: of living. Crisis has meant a lot of people pulling
Speaker 5: their subscriptions from these various streaming services.
Speaker 2: So what do you think is going to happen now?
Speaker 2: I mean, we find ourselves in somewhat uncharged territory. What
Speaker 2: will the next couple of weeks look like?
Speaker 5: It's a very interesting position to be in. So the
Speaker 5: writers have also been on strike since May, so actors
Speaker 5: and writers are on strike at the same time. That
Speaker 5: effectively means almost nothing can be produced and made. Certainly,
Speaker 5: under strike rules, no one can go to a set,
Speaker 5: no one can pitch a film or an episode, of
Speaker 5: something or write it. No one can promote it or
Speaker 5: appear at an awards show to accept an award for it.
Speaker 5: So these effects are not necessarily going to be clear immediately.
Speaker 5: We're going to have to wait and see. It does
Speaker 5: seem to me that since the writers have been on
Speaker 5: strike since May with absolutely no sign of slowing down,
Speaker 5: the actors could hold on for a long time.
Speaker 2: Well it have any change for say, you going to
Speaker 2: the movies? Like, is Barbie now not going to be on?
Speaker 5: Barbie's fine, Barbie's locked and loaded. It's just that we
Speaker 5: won't be getting any more Margo, Robbie and Ryan Gosling
Speaker 5: play with Puppies interviews because they're not allowed to promote
Speaker 5: it anymore. But Barbie's going to come out. It's what
Speaker 5: will happen next year. Even assuming that the writers and
Speaker 5: the actors strikes get resolved within a matter of months,
Speaker 5: that's a long period of time where nothing has been made.
Speaker 5: So it might be a year before we suddenly realize, Hm,
Speaker 5: there hasn't been a movie come out in a little bit.
Speaker 5: It will be because yeah, they weren't allowed to make them.
Speaker 5: During the American summer of twenty twenty three, we might
Speaker 5: just have a really thin oscars in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to this episode of The Daily Ours.
Speaker 3: We have loved seeing your feedback on Spotify. Please keep
Speaker 3: it up. It tells us what you want more of
Speaker 3: and what you're loving so far. We'll see you again
Speaker 3: tomorrow