Here’s a Hollywood question for you: if Tom Hanks, a superstar with an everyman bent and a reputation for fairness, is not on your side, do you still have a shot?
That’s the issue confronting the leadership of the Screen Actors Guild, which is in the middle of a rough week trying to build support for a coming vote to authorize a strike. Other unions in Hollywood have settled with the studios that employ them, but the actors, led by Alan Rosenberg, continue to insist that more be put on their table, particularly in the form of revenues from films and television programs made for online distribution.
Make that some of the actors. A simmering conflict within the guild over the wisdom of authorizing a strike against the backdrop of a national recession boiled over into open rebellion this week. On Monday a legion of A-list actors spoke out against a strike in a letter, and an emotional, crowded town-hall meeting with New York members ended in public acrimony.
The 120,000-member union has a history of internal strife, but the current fractiousness would seem to suggest that a vote authorizing a strike is up against star-studded opposition. (The vote is scheduled for a three-week period beginning on Jan. 2.) Of those who vote, 75 percent must approve the authorization for it to pass.
Monday’s letter, organized in part by the actress Rhea Perlman and the actor Richard Masur, a former president of the guild, was signed by 130 of the bigger names in the business. It said, in part, “We support our union and we support the issues we’re fighting for, but we do not believe in all good conscience that now is the time to be putting people out of work.” Beneath that was what might have been the cast list for a tentpole blockbuster: George Clooney, Glenn Close, Cameron Diaz, Charlize Theron, Matt Damon, Morgan Freeman and Mr. Hanks.
Other high-profile actors, including Mel Gibson, Holly Hunter, Martin Sheen and Sandra Oh, have sided with the union, principally over the issue of residuals for new-media productions, but in Hollywood Mr. Hanks is formidable opposition indeed. His nice-guy reputation in and out of the industry makes it difficult for his opponents to say they are on the side of the angels.
“Tom believes that he has been very blessed and cares a great deal about working actors who have not been so lucky, but he doesn’t think this is the time to talk about a strike,” said a friend of Mr. Hanks, a well-known producer who asked that his name not be published because he did not want to be seen as speaking on Mr. Hanks’s behalf or as putting himself in the middle of the actors’ fight.
