A dozen of Hollywood’s highest-paid stars, from George Clooney to Meryl Streep, have each donated $1 million or more to help out-of-work actors as their strike approaches its fourth week, according to their union’s philanthropic foundation.
The Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) strike, as well as another strike by film and television writers that began in May over pay and the threat of artificial intelligence, have effectively halted US film and television production.
The Hollywood “double strike” of writers and performers has lost the entertainment business and the California economy millions of dollars per day, as well as the striking workers’ income.
A-list celebrities, like Clooney and Streep, as well as Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, as well as Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts, Oprah Winfrey, and others, have each contributed $1 million or more to the SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s actors’ assistance fund.
According to a statement, the nonprofit foundation has raised more than $15 million in the last three weeks to assist “thousands of journeymen actors” facing financial difficulties.
“The entertainment industry is in crisis and the SAG-AFTRA Foundation is currently processing more than 30 times our usual number of applications for emergency aid,” Courtney B. Vance, the foundation’s president, said in the statement.
The organization’s assistance program is intended to “ensure that performers in need don’t lose their homes, have the ability to pay for utilities, buy food for their families, purchase life-saving prescriptions, cover medical bills, and more,” according to Vance.
While some performers are well compensated, According to The New York Times, SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher stated last week that 86% of the union’s 160,000 members make less than $26,500 each year.
since of the strikes, movie productions have been halted, glamorous premieres have been canceled, and events like as the Emmys have been postponed since stars are prohibited from promoting TV shows.
