Canadian actor Stephen Amell has been slammed after coming out against the actors’ strike which has brought Hollywood productions to a dramatic standstill.
The Arrow star, 42, said The Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) strike was “incredibly frustrating” and “myopic” while onstage at a fan convention in the US.
Amell, whose Starz series Heels premiered its second season at the weekend, added he supports his union, however felt the action of striking was a “reductive negotiating tactic”.
“I support my union, I do, and I stand with them, but I do not support striking, I don’t,” he said during an appearance at ‘Galaxycon’ in North Carolina.
“I think it is a reductive negotiating tactic, and I find the entire thing incredibly frustrating. “And I think the thinking as it pertains to shows like the show that I’m on [Heels], that premiered last night, I think it’s myopic.”
Amell’s stance makes him one of the first high-profile people to speak out against the ongoing actors’ strike, which officially began on July 13 after negotiations to reach a new deal with production studios ended without an agreement.
Many took to Twitter to call out Amell for his “unbelievable” take on the issue:
SAG-AFTRA, which represents 160,000 performers, formally joined writers who had been protesting for weeks last month in the first industry-wide shutdown in more than 60 years.
The actors’ strike got off to a dramatic start when the cast of one of the year’s most anticipated films walked out of their own movie’s premiere.
The UK debut of Oppenheimer was thrown into chaos with Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon and Florence Pugh all vanishing moments before the film was due to begin.
Director Christopher Nolan told the audience in London’s Leicester Square that his cast had walked out in solidarity with the just-called strike.
“You’ve seen them here earlier on the red carpet,” he said. “Unfortunately, they’re off to write their picket signs for what we believe to be an imminent strike by SAG, joining one of my guilds, the Writers Guild, in the struggle for fair wages for working members of the unions, and we support them.”
Shortly after, actors took to picket lines in droves outside studio headquarters from California to New York.
Hundreds of strikers marched with placards at the Netflix building on Los Angeles’ famed Sunset Boulevard, as well as at Disney, Paramount, Warner and Amazon premises, with passing drivers honking their horns in support.
In New York, Jason Sudeikis and Susan Sarandon were among A-listers who showed up for demonstrations, triggered by the refusal of studio bosses to meet actors’ demands for better pay and job security.
The union’s demands have focused on dwindling pay in the streaming era, and the threat posed by artificial intelligence.
The last time the actors’ union went on strike was in 1980 over the advent of pay television and home video, which lasted more than three months.