SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher took New York City by storm on Thursday, August 3, making multiple appearances at picket lines to rally striking actors.
To cheers, Drescher took to the podium at the picket line outside of HBO’s New York offices. According to video of the event sourced by Variety, she told her fellow actors, “I just want to say I am so grateful for your enthusiasm and your commitment to this strike. It means everything.”
She called the negotiations with Hollywood producers “seminal,” adding, “We cannot go back to the way things were. Too much has changed. They have to wake up and smell the coffee!”
She also led the crowd in a chant of their new hashtag, “Yield2OurDeal.”
Drescher also showed support to picketers outside of Paramount’s offices in Times Square, following an event outside City Hall on Tuesday, August 1.
According to video posted by Deadline, it was there she explained that as a girl in Flushing, Queens, she dreamed of being an actress and joining SAG. “But I never imagined that the show business that was so romanticized in the old movies of the 1930s and ’40s, in 2023 would actually be led by such greed-driven and disrespectful people.”
She said a majority of working actors just want to put food on their table — and 86% don’t make enough money to make them eligible for health care.
“Are they hoping to break us?” Drescher asked rhetorically. “They will have to yield to our deal!”
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