The Nanny star Fran Drescher calls for actor strike in Yiddish
Lights, cameras and actors ground to a halt last week, when the Union's Jewish President demanded action
Brigit Grant is the Jewish News Supplements Editor
Jewish actress and president of the actor’s union SAG-AFTRA, Fran Drescher, resorted to using Yiddish in her call for a strike last week.
The strike announcement that saw union members on every film and TV set in America walk off set, has left the studio bosses reeling and the shut down has extended to films in production in other countries, including the UK, where filming has now stopped at Warner Bros’ studio at Leavesden.
Now standing in dispute, alongside the Hollywood writers guild (WGA) Fran Drescher who starred in the sitcom, The Nanny, called the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMTP) a greedy entity that is victimising actors and likened their offer to what her Jewish mother calls “a leck and a schmeck,” in other words a lick and a sniff, which amounts to nothing.
She went on to sat that the trade organisation’s inability to offer proper compensation to actors in light of a changing business model, with streaming services on the rise and AI and technology changing the industry is no longer acceptable.
“What are we doing, moving around furniture in the titanic?” she said, adding “shame on them.” There was yet more Yiddish from Drescher, who was born and raised in Queens, when she described the offer from the studio executives, as bupkis (nothing).
“We got bupkis, I think that we were duped,” she said and wants people to realise that the strike is about more than just some wealthy actors getting better pay. ” The majority of SAG-AFTRA members are journeyman performers — working class people trying to take care of their families. It’s very important that everybody appreciates that we’re not just sticking up for ourselves, we’re sticking up for everybody else… It’s a slippery slope into a very dangerous time and a real dystopia, if big business, corporations think that they can put real human beings out of work and replace them with artificial intelligence, it’s dangerous, it’s without thinking or conscience.”
The WGA has now been on strike for 11 weeks, and with SAG joining them, this strike led by Drescher is historical as this is the first time since the 1960s that both unions have been in dispute at the same time.
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