When SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher announced in mid July that the union was going on strike against AMPTP, she gave a barn-burner of a speech in a press conference. She laid it out clearly that this fight was about protecting labor against greedy corporations. Since that turning point actors have been organized and showing up on the picket lines and at rallies. On Tuesday Bryan Cranston joined a rally in New York’s Times Square, where he gave a passionate speech of his own, in which he name-checked Disney CEO Bob Iger and decried the use of AI to replace actors (all the more timely given Netflix’s latest job listing for an AI manager, annual salary $300 – $900K). Yahoo! Entertainment covered highlights of his speech:

Bryan Cranston delivered a fiery speech at a SAG-AFTRA strike rally in Times Square on Tuesday, which included a message directed at Disney head Bob Iger.

“We’ve got a message for Mr. Iger,” Cranston said from the stage of the “Rock the City for a Fair Contract” rally. “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!”

Cranston 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.”

“We are not in the same business model we were even 10 years ago,” he said. “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truth in today’s economy, they are fighting us tooth and nail to stick to the same economic system that is outmoded, outdated!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.”

[From Yahoo! Entertainment]

I highly recommend watching the video of his speech below. There isn’t much more than what’s quoted above, but he delivers it so, so well. There are a few reasons why I think he’s an effective speaker for the striking actors. For one, he’s finally shaved. Go ahead and laugh at me, but before you do, imagine that Lorax mustache he was sporting at Cannes and tell me he would have had the same gravitas saying “we will not allow you to take away our dignity!” I rest my case.

Second, Cranston straddles a fine line that needs to be heeded from a pr standpoint. On the one hand it’s the successful minority of actors who attract visibility to the cause, but on the other hand, they have to guard against people thinking “oh it’s just rich celebrities wanting more money.” No, the celebrities are there in solidarity with the majority of their guild who are jobbing actors. Cranston is an excellent ambassador here, because while he’s undoubtedly “made it” now, it wasn’t until he was in his 40s that he landed the recurring role on Seinfeld. Which led to more bit parts in TV and film, which a few years later led to his break in Malcolm in the Middle. He knows what it is to be a jobbing actor, and he knows that career path is untenable now with the way streaming has upended the industry.

One final reason I find Cranston an intriguing advocate here: he’s also a director, with a nice resume of TV episodes under his belt. The DGA is the only one of the three guilds to have signed a new contract with AMPTP, a decision that is very rapidly living in infamy. As a union the directors have been conspicuously quiet since the actors joined the writers in striking. Et tu, DGA?

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images