Bryan Cranston Delivered Rousing Speech at SAG-AFTRA Strike Rally Which He Openly Directed at Bob Iger
Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning actor Bryan Cranston, known best for his roles in Breaking Bad, Trumbo, and Your Honor, has shown up at the SAG-AFTRA Strike in a big way. The actor attended a rally in Times Square on Tuesday, and he made a speech to his audience of picketing actors and writers and supporters, which he directed at the Head of Disney, Bob Iger, who has made many tone deaf comments regarding the strike.
Variety reports that Cranston was one of a number of stars who took the stage to address a crowd of hundreds of SAG-AFTRA members and union supporters at the rally, with others including Steve Buscemi, Wendell Pierce, Christian Slater, Christine Baranski, Stephen Lang, and Titus Burgess. They were joined onstage by fellow actors Michael Shannon, BD Wong, Brendan Fraser, Jessica Chastain, Matt Bomer, Chloë Grace Moretz, and Corey Stoll, and more.
Cranston took the stage of the “Rock the City for a Fair Contract” rally, and began his remarks by saying that there is one thing that all the guilds and the AMPTP fundamentally agree on: “Our industry has changed exponentially.” He went on:
“We’ve got a message for Mr. Iger. I know, sir, that you look [at] things through a different lens. We don’t expect you to understand who we are. But we ask you to hear us, and beyond that to listen to us when we tell you we will not be having our jobs taken away and given to robots. We will not have you take away our right to work and earn a decent living. And lastly, and most importantly, we will not allow you to take away our dignity! We are union through and through, all the way to the end!”
We are not in the same business model we were even 10 years ago. And yet, even though they admit that is the truth in today’s economy, they are fighting us tooth and nail to stick to the same economic system that is outmoded, outdated! They want us to step back in time. We cannot and we will not do that.”
Burgess decided to forego a speech, instead singing a section of the song “Take Me to the World” from “Sondheim On Sondheim.” Baranski told the crowd “We will not live under corporate feudalism” while also praising the background actors on shows like The Good Wife and The Good Fight, saying that she attended the rally to speak for them and demand they get fair treatment under any new contract. Slater then spoke about how his father, a fellow SAG member, received support from the union after mental illness and later cancer left him unable to work.
Later on in the rally, The Bear star Liza Colón-Zayas told the audience that she has been a union member since 1994 and “struggled for 30 years to finally get here, only to find that my residuals have dwindled exponentially.” She then paraphrased Snoop Dogg by saying “We the artists, our gripe is that we deliver in high numbers, in major numbers. And yet, where the f— is my money?”
It sounds like this is just the beginning of the battle. Some are saying the strike will go on for months before negotiations will be revisited. I guess we will just have to wait and see.