‘Oppenheimer’ cast leave UK premiere to join SAG strike
Earlier today, Emily Blunt stated that she would join the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) strikes if they were announced during today’s UK premiere of Christopher Nolan’s new movie Oppenheimer. It has now been reported that the cast has left the screening after a strike announcement.
“I hope everyone makes a fair deal, and we are here to celebrate this movie,” Emily Blunt stated on the red carpet. “And if they call it, we’ll be leaving together as cast in unity with everyone … We are gonna have to. We are gonna have to. We will see what happens. Right now, it’s the joy to be together.”
It is unclear at present whether the entire cast has departed, but it appears Matt Damon is certainly looking to support the cause. “Ben [Affleck] and I just started this little independent studio and we’re three and a half movies in and we’re shutting down on one of them now,” Damon added on the red carpet.
“We’re just waiting for everything to resolve. It’s brutal for our sister unions; it’s brutal for IATSE; it’s gonna be tough for 160,000 actors.”
“So, nobody wants a work stoppage, but if our leadership is saying that the deal isn’t fair, then we’ve gotta hold strong until we get a deal that’s fair for working actors,” he continued. “You know, it’s the difference between having health care and not for a lot of actors, and we’ve got to do what’s right by them.”
The new developments come following the news that a deal has yet to be reached between SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP. The action will mark the first actors’ strike against the film and TV industry since 1980 and the first time that both actors and writers are simultaneously striking since 1960 when Ronald Reagan was president of the SAG.
Watch Matt Damon discuss the prospect of the SAG strikes below.
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