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SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher Speaks Out About The Actor's Strike At SAG Awards 2024
Fran Drescher, who was often criticized for her unconventional leadership style during the SAG-AFTRA, spoke about the 118-day Actor's Strike at the SAG Awards ceremony.
The SAG-AFTRA strike in Hollywood lasted for 118 days and it froze the entire entertainment industry for over six months with the concurrent Writers Guild of America labor freeze. The stories being told behind the scenes often came at the expense of SAG-AFTRA union president Fran Drescher, who was often criticized for her unconventional leadership style during negotiations.
Drescher resurfaced the union’s 118-day strike in remarks at the 2024 SAG Awards ceremony saying that union members set the trajectory for many generations to come during the work stoppage.
Fran Drescher speaks out about Actor's Strike at SAG Awards 2024
During her speech at the 2024 SAG Awards, Fran Drescher called the actors union’s approximately 160,000 members the champions. “You survived the longest strike in our union’s history with courage and conviction. The journey was arduous, it came with great sacrifice and unrelenting stress,” she said.
“Your solidarity ignited workers around the world, triggering what forever be remembered as the hot labor summer,” she added and continued, "This was a seminal moment in our union’s history that has set the trajectory for many generations to come, not afraid but brave, not weak but powered, not peons but partners.”
She also took a shot at AI which SAG-AFTRA’s 2023 TV/theatrical contract tackles saying, it will “entrap us in a matrix where no one knows what’s real. We should tell stories that spark the human spirit, connect us to the natural world and awaken our capacity to love unconditionally.”
At the awards show, Luther actor Idris Elba acknowledged the 2023 actors' strike as a recent issue. He praised the solidarity and support of those who stood up for SAG-AFTRA in the past year, highlighting the challenges faced by the industry. Accepting the best performance by a cast in a motion picture award for Oppenheimer, Kenneth Branagh noted about the SAG-AFTRA. “Thank you, thank you, thank you SAG-AFTRA, thank you for this, thank you for fighting for us. Thank you for every SAG-AFTRA member whose support and whose sacrifice allows us to be standing here better than we were before,” he said.
Succession star Alan Ruck added that the biggest lesson he gleaned from the strike was to “just stand up for what you believe in. If something’s wrong, you need to say something about it.”
Abbott Elementary actor Chris Perfetti noted, “We had a wild year and here we are still celebrating, and we have a lot to celebrate. It’s kind of emotional that we’re all dressing up and carrying on as usual. It’s a good feeling.” He added that the strikes “solidified the fact that this business and any endeavor as an artist is a roller coaster.”
SAG-AFTRA executive VP Linda Powell had a ringside seat to the negotiations, as she served as vice chair of the 2023 TV/Theatrical negotiating committee. On the red carpet, Powell said of the energy in the room at the SAG Awards, “Everybody is ready to celebrate, everybody is looking forward to this year, taking advantage of the wins and the new sense of collective energy that we’ve got going into this.”
She added, “One of the big things we talked about throughout the strike was the importance of the humanity that we bring into the room when we go to work, and tonight we celebrate the people who bring a human face to these films.”
The 2024 SAG Awards took place at Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall and streamed live on Netflix, a little over three months following the end of SAG-AFTRA’s strike.
More about SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher
Francine Joy Drescher is an American actress, comedian, writer, activist, and trade union leader, currently serving as the National President of the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). She is known for her role as Fran Fine in the television sitcom The Nanny (1993–1999), which she created and produced with her then-husband Peter Marc Jacobson.
Drescher made her screen debut with a small role in the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever and later appeared in American Hot Wax (1978) and Wes Craven's horror film Stranger in Our House (1978). In the 1980s, she gained recognition as a comedic actress in the films Gorp (1980), The Hollywood Knights (1980), Doctor Detroit (1983), This Is Spinal Tap (1984), and UHF (1989) while establishing a television career with guest appearances on several series.
In 1993, she achieved wider fame as Fran Fine in her own sitcom vehicle The Nanny, for which she was nominated for two Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress in a Comedy Television Series during the show's run. In the 2000s, Drescher starred in the sitcoms Living with Fran and Happily Divorced. From 2012 to 2022, she starred in the animated Hotel Transylvania film series. In 2014, Drescher made her Broadway debut in Cinderella as stepmother Madame. In 2020, she starred in the NBC sitcom Indebted.
In 2021, Fran Drescher began her campaign to become President of the SAG-AFTRA union, citing both her entertainment and political background. Her candidacy came from the Unite for Strength faction, and she ran against actor Matthew Modine. On September 2, 2021, SAG-AFTRA announced that Drescher had won the election.
On July 13, 2023, after SAG-AFTRA members overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike action a week prior, Drescher announced the SAG-AFTRA strike was to begin at midnight the following day, running alongside the concurrent WGA strike that began just over two months prior. The strike ended with a tentative deal between the union and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers which was approved by the SAG-AFTRA board and awaits a vote by union members.
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