Margot Robbie, Emily Blunt, Keke Palmer, and More Celebs Share Support for Actors Strike

Hollywood's actors are officially going on strike. On Thursday, July 13, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) announced a strike, after talks broke down with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). The news comes two months after the Writers Guild of America (WGA) went on strike on May 2, marking the first time that actors and writers have gone on simultaneous strikes since 1960. Hollywood is expected to effectively shut down until the two unions reach a fair agreement with the AMPTP, which represents the major studios and streaming services.

"What’s happening to us is happening across all fields of labor," SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher said in press conference on announcing the strike. "When employers make Wall Street and greed their priority, and they forget about the essential contributors that make the machine run, we have a problem, and we are experiencing that right at this moment.... The gravity of this move is not lost on me or our negotiating committee, or our board members, who have voted unanimously to proceed with a strike. It’s a very serious thing that impacts thousands if not millions of people all across this country and around the world."

Last month, more than 300 SAG-AFTRA members—including Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, Rami Malek, Quinta Brunson, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Amy Schumer, and Amy Poehler—signed off on a letter to the union's negotiating committee, urging the reps not to settle for a deal that doesn’t represent all of their demands. In addition to halting work on scripted films and TV series, actors will also not be permitted to promote their film and television work via premieres, interviews, or their social media accounts for the duration of the strike.

Ahead of the strike, several celebrities shared their support while attending the last film premieres for the near future. During Wednesday night's London premiere of Barbie, Margot Robbie told Sky News that she’s “absolutely” in support of a SAG-AFTRA strike. "I very much am in support of all the unions, and I’m a part of SAG, so I would absolutely stand by them," she added.

On Thursday morning, the highly-anticipated film Oppenheimer held its U.K. premiere; the film's stars, including Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, and Florence Pugh, left the event early. In a clip from the premiere, director Christopher Nolan said of their departure: "They are 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 their union."

Over the weekend following Thursday's announcement, numerous A-listers shared their support for the strike on social media, both through passionate calls for solidarity and candid posts sharing their experiences as actors. In a now-viral TikTok, Orange Is The New Black actress Kimiko Glenn opened up about her experience with pay discrepancy while starring on the Netflix hit, saying that many of the actors on the show weren’t paid well enough to quit their side hustles. "People were bartenders still. People had their second jobs still. They were fucking famous as shit, like internationally famous, couldn’t go outside, but had to keep their second jobs because they couldn’t afford to not," she said.

In addition to the social media posts, several clips have been posted of celebs picketing in Hollywood and sharing their support. See the celebs' clips and posts below, from Jane Fonda to Margot Robbie to Jamie Lee Curtis to Cynthia Nixon.

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