The Venice Film Festival begins tomorrow, followed closely by Telluride and then Toronto. I’ve waxed poetic before about the impeccable conduct of actors and union leaders during the strike, and now that Tepid Film Festival Fall™ is officially underway, I am very eager to see the next phase play out. I feel like the tone may be about to shift, given that there’s so much business involved with the festivals. This may be why we saw SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher record a composed, if somewhat sober interview last week. Once again she emphasized that the writers and actors strikes are about all workers, not just Hollywood. A few choice quotes:
No more: “At some point you have to say no more,” Drescher, the former “Nanny” star who is now president of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, said in an interview at the union’s headquarters Wednesday. “I think that it’s taken on a bigger scope, it’s greater than the sum of its parts. I think it’s a conversation now about the culture of big business, and how it treats everybody up and down the ladder in the name of profit.”
Her barn-burner speech wasn’t scripted: Drescher told the AP that she had no intention of getting on a soap box that day. She was supposed to read a written statement, then take questions. “I looked at it quickly and I said, ‘You know what, I can’t say this, I really feel like I have to speak from the heart,’” she said. “That just kind of came out of my mouth, and I’m glad that I was able to express myself as succinctly and sincerely and authentically as I did. And I think that it’s fascinating when you speak from the heart, people are so responsive. Because I guess they see a lot of people that don’t.”
On success with The Nanny in the 90s: “I’m very grateful that I got my big break during that time and not this time,” Drescher said. “When I started on ‘The Nanny’ at CBS, that was still a family owned business. You knew who the owners were and you could talk to them. And everything has changed… Now, when you have a business model where the CEOs are more connected to the shareholders and not to the people that actually make the product that they’re selling,” she said. “I think that you have a breakdown that is unsustainable.”
An inflection point: “I’m not really understanding what the silent treatment is,” Drescher said. “It could be a tactical strategy to see if they can wait us out until we lose our resolve and then they can make a better deal for themselves.” Drescher said nothing like that is going to happen. “This is an inflection point,” she said. “I don’t think anybody that’s in charge of the AMPTP quite understands that. This is not like any past negotiation. We’re in a whole new ball game. And if things don’t change radically, quite frankly, I think that they’re going to ultimately get very hurt by this strike.”
[From AP News]
BOOM, mic drop. If you watch the video of the interview, you see she’s very calm throughout. It’s like the polar opposite to her now infamous speech from July. Again, I think this new composure is all about a new phase of the strike. She’s reined in the emotions to talk business with the business boys. And I have to say, I just love the way she ends it with faux concern about how AMPTP is about to have their asses handed to them. “Guys, I’m really worried about you. You don’t seem to realize how much trouble you’re in. Call me!”
Completely random anecdote: when I was a sophomore in high school I’d come home in the afternoon, turn on the tv to Nanny reruns, and settle in to do the eleventy-one geometry problems I had for homework that night—and I passed!!! If Nanny Fine could get me through Euclidean geometry, I trust her to get the actors through this strike.
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