Walking and Talking the Company Line
A pair of high-profile actors got into trouble over the past couple of weeks by expressing frustration with the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, making comments that some took as criticizing the union and its strike rules. First Zachary Levi, then Stephen Amell talked about the fact that they were not allowed to discuss or promote their work while the strike was ongoing, and experienced considerable fallout that made them both walk back the statements.
Levi first. A TikTok video taken during his July appearance at Comic Con Manchester was uploaded, in which the actor told the crowd, often laughing as he did, “I’m not allowed to talk about — this is so dumb. I’m not allowed to talk about any of my previous work. I’m not allowed to talk about movies that I may be a superhero in [Shazam: Fury of the Gods]. I’m not allowed to talk about TV shows that I may have been a nerd who worked at a Best Buy [Chuck]. I’m not allowed to talk about any animated princess movies that I was fantastic in as the best prince ever [Tangled]. I’m not allowed to talk about those things.”
After the predictable blowback from these comments, he put out a statement saying, “It’s come to my attention that an offhand remark I made in jest last weekend is being taken out of context. So let me be very clear. I fully support my union, the WGA and the strike. I remain an outspoken critic of the exploitative system that we artists are subject to work in since I started my journey in this business 25 years ago. This strike is necessary to protect ourselves, our writers, and all those working in production who make the industry move.”
Because some people can’t learn from the mistakes of others, Amell followed up Levi’s misstatements with a whopper of his own. A couple of weeks back, at a fan convention in North Carolina, the Arrow and Heels star had said that, while he supported the union, he did “not support striking,” adding, “I think that it is a reductive negotiating tactic, and I find the entire thing incredibly frustrating.”
Like Levi, he was complaining about not being able to publicize the second season of his pro wrestling drama, Heels. To be fair, the show’s network, Starz, had been jerking around the show’s producers (of which Amell is one) for months before finally giving them a release date. The new season had been completed for close to a year, but the first episode didn’t drop until July 27th, with two more of what will be a total of eight episodes having dropped since. After such a long run-up, it’s undoubtedly infuriating to the actor that he can’t talk about the show or tell people to watch it.
Still, this was a bad look, and if that fact wasn’t abundantly clear in the moments after he said it, the backlash clued him in. He took to social media a few days later to clarify his comments and walk them back a bit, writing, “My off-the-cuff use of the word ‘support’ is clearly contradictory to my true feelings and my emphatic statement that I stand with my union. Of course, I don’t like striking. Nobody does. But we have to do what we have to do.” He concluded, “At least for the foreseeable future, I choose to stand with my union. When you see me on a picket line please don’t whip any hard fruit.”
Sure enough, by the end of last week, he was out on the picket lines in front of Warner Bros. Discovery’s New York offices. He didn’t otherwise comment, nor were there any reports of fruit, hard or otherwise, flying in his direction.
The moral of the story? No one likes walking the picket lines or not being able to work or, for that matter, promote the work they’ve already done, but if you’re going to complain about it, it’s probably best to do so in private, where no one is recording what you’re saying.
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