Publicists Hold Urgent Meeting With SAG-AFTRA to Discuss Financial Woes as Actors Stop Doing Press (EXCLUSIVE)

News broadcasters aren’t on strike, but their SAG-AFTRA steering committee is standing behind the actors and performers who are. “The world is watching,” the committee said in a statement Wednesday, and urged a “quick and productive resolution to the strike.”

Luc Besson’s DogMan has become one of the first films to receive a SAG-AFTRA interim agreement that will allow talent to do press during the upcoming festival season. Actors will be allowed to promote the pic at its upcoming premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

In the wake of yesterday’s upbeat news that the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and the WGA are heading back for talks this Friday, SAG-AFTRA’s Duncan Crabtree-Ireland says that as far as actors go, it’s still crickets from the producers.

Sarah Silverman isn’t so pissed off any more about the interim agreements that SAG-AFTRA has been handing out, but the comedian is still pretty “cynical” about the whole thing.

While publicists are for the most part disinclined to make themselves the story, they’re making their voices heard now, coming out of the woodworks to address their thorny meeting with SAG-AFTRA leadership earlier this week.

Eammon Holmes has paid tribute to singing legend Sinead O'Connor. It was confirmed on Wednesday that the Irish singer died at the age of 56.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer Prince Royal, an actor in Los Angeles, was working as an extra on “The Flash” when he was directed to a tractor trailer to “take pictures.” Inside were hundreds of cameras. He stood with his arms up as the operators took a 3-D scan, which he was told would be used for continuity and special effects. “We were told if we didn’t do it, we’d be sent home without pay,” he said.

SAG-AFTRA will hold a mass rally in Times Square on Tuesday morning. It’s expected to be the biggest rally in NYC since the strike began on July 14. Celebs scheduled to attend the “Rock the City for a Fair Contract” rally include Bryan Cranston, Steve Buscemi, Christian Slater, Lauren Ambrose, Christine Baranski, Matt Bomer, Tituss Burgess, Liza Colón-Zayas, Gregory Diaz, Jennifer Ehle, Nancy Giles, Danai Gurrira, Jill Hennessy, Marin Hinkle, Stephen Lang, Arian Moayed, Wendell Pierce, Corey Stoll and Merritt Wever.

SAG-AFTRA has granted more waivers in recent days that give permission to indie projects to shoot during the current strike, including the independent film The Summer Book starring Glenn Close. Other recent projects that will be allowed to shoot include the TV series Underdeveloped and Sight Unseen.

Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment Writer The perils of artificial intelligence to the entertainment industry came to San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday, with SAG-AFTRA national executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland joining a panel of voice actors organized by NAVA, the National Association of Voice Actors, to discuss the specific hazards AI is already posing to the profession. “We’ve got to reject the idea that this is just something that’s going to happen to us and we can’t say anything about it,” Crabtree-Ireland said at the outset of the panel, about whether AI could devastate the entertainment industry. “I think it definitely could, the question is whether we’re going to let that happen.”

EXCLUSIVE: For those awards strategists wondering whether stars from indie U.S. films can promote at the fall film festival troika, SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland says “We’re looking at that issue.”

Following SAG-AFTRA’s clearance of AppleTV+’s Israeli spy series Tehran and New Line’s horror movie Watchers –prolific projects from AMPTP studios that the guild remains in talks with– in their interim agreement process, some producers and filmmakers in town have been miffed.

EXCLUSIVE: SAG-AFTRA national executive director and chief negotiator is weighing on AMPTP’s just-released statement that rebuts the guild’s recent claims about the studios’ final offer before the strike.

Striking actors weren’t here at San Diego Comic-Con, however, the guild’s National Executive Director and Chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland was, side-by-side with voiceover actors to talk about the threat of A.I. in their profession for the National Association of Voiceover Actors panel “AI in Entertainment: The Performer’s Perspective Panel.”

SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland will be here at San Diego Comic-Con this Friday as a panelist on the National Association of Voice Actors’ session “AI in Entertainment: The Performers’ Perspective panel”.

Editor’s note: Almost a week into the first joint strike by the actors union and the writers guild since 1960, there are picket lines all over LA and NYC. Yet there are no new negotiations planned between SAG-AFTRA or the WGA and the studios and streamers. Despite the silence and divisions between the parties, SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland insists that a pathway to a new contract and a better future for all is possible.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor SAG-AFTRA held an informational meeting for about 500 people over Zoom on Monday afternoon. Among those who signed on were actors Lupita Nyong’o, Vanessa Kirby, Melissa McCarthy, Vanessa Hudgens, Lucy Liu,  Laverne Cox, Michael Stuhlbarg, Paul Walter Hauser, Jon Huertas and Josh Pence, according to a source. CAA’s Bryan Lourd, Faith France and Ryan Abboushi also attended, as did UTA’s Kristen Saig and Kris Heller of APA Agency. Publicists included Mara Buxbaum, Jill Fritzo, Luke Windsor, Brianna Smith and Cheryl Maisel. The meeting was led by SAG-AFTRA national executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland. The guild shared a one-sheet of talking points for participants. Among the bulleted items on revenue sharing, health care and retirement, online casting platforms and artificial intelligence, the memo states, “Without a transformative change in SAG-AFTRA’s current contract with the AMPTP, the acting profession will no longer be an option for future generations of performers, and actors already working in the industry will need to pursue other careers in order to survive.”

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer SAG-AFTRA and the major studios remain at odds on a dizzying array of issues, as film and TV actors hit the picket lines Friday for the first time since 1980. According to sources on both sides, the biggest sticking point is the union’s demand for 2% of the revenue generated by streaming shows. The two sides also remain far apart on basic increases in minimum rates, with the studios offering 5%, 4% and 3.5% across the three years of the contract, while the union is demanding 11%, 4% and 4%. But that only scratches the surface. The parties are at odds on dozens of issues, only a handful of which have been publicly reported.

Fran Drescher boarded the bus and has landed at her first picket line on the first day of the actors strike.

Fran Drescher is speaking out in response to the controversy surrounding her recent trip to Italy and meetup with Kim Kardashian.