Last week, Hollywood’s actors joined its writers in the first industry-wide shutdown in 63 years. The West Wing’s Richard Schiff tells us his fears for new actors and how it feels to know that AI could “clone” him for future projects.
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Guests: 
Richard Schiff, actor and director, andConstance Kampfner, News Reporter, The Times.Host: Manveen Rana. 
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Last Friday, the stars of the movie Oppenheimer, which is released today, gathered in Leicester Square in London for what should have been a glittering premiere.

We are gonna be joined by director Christopher Nolan, his producing partner Emma Thompson and 1 of the most star-studded cast I've ever had the pleasure of announcing here in London's Leicester Square, including Rami Malek.

The Barbie pink carpet that had been laid up for the last big premiere was hurriedly rolled up and replaced by a sombre black 1 instead.

But just as things were about to begin, something remarkable happened.

At the same time as that kind of transition from the light, fun fluff that is Barbie to this kind of very serious film about nuclear bombs unfolded, at that same time it emerged that negotiations had broken down in America between the actors' unions and the studio representatives, which meant that a strike was imminent.

Before the movie began, Christopher Nolan gets on stage, he's the director, and he tells the gathered audience that the actors are on their way out to quote write their picket signs so then all the actors stand up from their seats in their ball gowns and and walk out and there it is the Hollywood strike has begun

It's extremely difficult in the new Hollywood.

The streaming, you know, the question of residuals.

A residual payment is every time something is repeated.

Now with streaming shows, it's endlessly being repeated.

You know, we're still streaming, succession still being streamed.

And we need to cover the expense that we are not getting from that.

actors went on strike, joining over 11, 000 writers who'd already walked out back in May, resulting in the first industry-wide shutdown of Hollywood in 63 years.

There's money being made and it needs to be allocated in a way that takes care of people who are on the margin.

So why have Hollywood actors gone on strike?

And if the dispute isn't resolved soon, what might happen to the TV and film industries in the months to come?

You're listening to Stories of Our Times from the Times and the Sunday Times.

I'm Richard Schiff and I am an actor and have been a director when I was on the West Wing for 7 years, which the English audience might know very well.

President, we're going to have someone take you back to bed.

And just a lot of people in this country, as you say, you know, loved the West Wing, this very long series about the White House and you, of course, played the legendary Toby Ziegler.

I arranged for a friend to testify to commerce on Internet stocks, while simultaneously, but unrelated to that, bought a technology issue, which, partly due to

my friend's testimony, shot through the roof.

I think the first show was in 1999 when Bill Clinton was still president and it ran until

It was quite a perfect storm of luck, of having very talented people given the opportunity to express themselves to their fullest potential.

And Richard, we're talking to you today because actors in Hollywood have decided to go on strike.

Well the issues have been growing for quite a while And it started way back when video cassettes, in which actors received a certain percentage to split amongst them as video cassettes were sold and resold and rented and so on back in the blockbuster days.

And then technology changed and then it went to DVDs and actors got a lot less of the money that was taken in from the DVDs by the studios.

And now we've gone into streaming and when we came up to negotiate a contract when that became the next technological advancement.

It was claimed that studios had no idea how this new technology was going to ever be monetized.

And studios are making money, as far as we can tell, hand over foot and becoming gigantic corporations while reducing the compensation for actors more and more and more as time goes on.

I mean for example for you, what is the difference between say you and the West Wing and you now in 1 of your current series like The Good Doctor?

Yes, well I need to disclose and be transparent in that this strike isn't for me.

You know, I've done well, I've been lucky, I've been on hit shows.

It's for when I was a middle class and struggling actor.

It's for the actor that's struggling paycheck to paycheck.

So back in the West Wing days, we would be compensated because the show would rerun on network television.

And there was a certain fee that we received, a royalty, every time the show aired again on network television.

And then as it moved on to streaming, we got less and even less because studios claim that they have no idea how to measure how many people are watching and therefore there's no formula to determine how much actors should be compensated.

I mean just to give us a sense of the difference, Are you still getting residuals from the West Wing and how do they compare with what you're getting for a series like The Good Doctor which is on streaming services at the moment?

Well this is what's interesting because the studios devised a way of negotiating contracts that eliminate residuals almost completely.

So they include a buyout in my basic salary.

in a salary, right, just arbitrarily, And I would have gotten maybe 2 to $3, 000 an episode in residuals over the first 3 or 4 years that it reran at somewhere.

Well, the studio was saying that those 2 and $3, 000 is gonna go to them.

And So they basically, for an actor that's struggling and finally has a hit show and is contributing to the making of a lot of money for the studio, they're not getting compensated for residuals anymore or barely at all.

And it used to be a scenario where residuals would trickle in.

It's like deferred payment, you know, and so retired actors rely on residuals.

The studio continues to make money off of that product And the actors are getting a very small percentage.

So in the old days it acknowledged that every time that show was seen again, every time it was repeated, and every time the studio made money from it, part of its success, part of the reason it was being seen again was because of the actors who made it.

And now it's as if the studio owns it all once you're done with it and you get nothing more.

I can see why that would go down badly, especially as you point out, it's a great retirement plan for actors too.

Keep in mind, actors that don't work all the time, when I was starting out and struggling to get work, and I would get a part on a show that set aside 3 months for me to work on the show for scale, which is not a lot of money.

In the meantime I'm not allowed to take other jobs and I'm not allowed to supplement my income and I'm on call any day of the week you know for 3 months.

It's the actors that are really struggling to make it and to survive on the jobs that they do get and when they get a job that contributes to the success of a show, of a studio, of a network, it's only fair in our mind that they get compensated properly for it.

Just talk us through how that's playing out and what the concerns are for actors.

Well we're trying to understand the potential of AI in the first place and It's very clear to me that AI isn't going anywhere, but certainly acting, which is your presence, what you bring, your soul, your blood, your tears, all of it to a role, you want the actor, the human being to represent the character that you've been asked to play, right?

And AI is capable of cloning me, of taking my voice.

Not only that, but on a creative level, I'm already somewhat upset, if you will, for lack of a better word, at how capable films and televisions are to alter the performance that I gave them on the day, right?

And with AI, they can literally, and they want to do this, the studios want the power to change words and to change lines and to change your expression.

And so they want complete rights over the work that you've given them.

It's mind-boggling to me just on a creative level, forget the economics for a second, that they can change what I do without suggesting it on the day.

They can make me cry if they want to, or they can make me laugh when I don't think the laughter is appropriate at that moment.

Well, it feels like I should go back and do some theatre if I want to maintain control of my own performance.

No, it feels invasive and it feels like you've lost the power to interpret the work which is what they've hired me to do.

And Richard, does anybody know how far this might go?

I mean, like, if they own the AI right to you effectively, could they make a sequel of the film without you, just using an AI generated version?

You know, going back to the tragic story of Brandon Lee, who was an actor that I worked with and who was tragically killed on set in the middle of a movie, 1 of those freak gun accidents, and they finish the movie.

So yeah, they can take my image in perpetuity and use it for whatever they want.

But that's the kind of thing that they're capable of doing on a much grander scale.

So for instance, background artists, we used to be called extras, the people that fill up the hallways of the West Wing and are constantly in the background, the studio wants the ability to pay them for 1 day and then use their image in perpetuity for wherever they want.

So the background of that show, the background of another show, that's the kind of thing that AI is capable of eliminating a whole class of actors that are in the unions.

That would make it much harder for a lot of young actors in particular, you know, actors who don't get that much work to survive.

And Richard, you mentioned that, you know, the studios seem to be doing really well.

I guess the studios would argue that streaming just isn't as profitable for them as the old cable and network TV system was and that they're not making as much.

You know, Netflix actually declined in profits in 2022 for the first time, you know, people cancel their subscriptions when they want to.

Yeah, I have a certain understanding that the business model has to work for everyone.

But let's keep in mind that Netflix was a titanic success for the last 10, 12 years, right?

So the fact that there's too much competition right now and that they have to adjust to that is understandable.

But I don't think how much they compensate actors is the biggest factor.

This model has to evolve into something that makes sense, more sense for everyone.

So Richard, I can see there are obviously a lot of problems that have led to this strike.

What do the studios need to offer for the strike to come to an end?

Wow, I, you know, years ago I was in the negotiating room and I know how difficult that scenario is.

Both sides clearly are willing at this point to wait until the other side suffers too much.

I'm hoping that they get to that conclusion in a reasonable amount of time but I don't have confidence that that will happen.

I think it's going to last for quite a while, maybe to January.

Coming up, what would happen if the strike really does go on for that long?

Our arts reporter explains how a previous Hollywood strike reshaped both American TV and history as we know it.

Neil Delamere, why would you tell me that?

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My name's Constance Campfner, I'm a reporter at The Times.

And you're covering a particular beat at the moment.

Yes, I'm covering arts and culture, so anything from music, film, theatre, museums, a little bit of architecture, the whole rigmarole.

And Constance, we've been hearing from an actor who has gone on strike to understand their side of the dispute.

I mean, they argue on streaming, first of all, that it's benefited actors and writers by making it essentially easier to earn an income even on shows that have been cancelled or are unpopular.

They are also saying that they are proposing very strong guardrails on artificial intelligence and they claim that they've addressed the Union's concerns.

They kind of disagree on what the propositions that they'd put out there for extra is actually involved.

They say it's been mischaracterized by the Union's.

But clearly that hasn't done anything to bring the unions on board.

No, and it's really hard to kind of see how you can agree on something that is kind of almost quite theoretical at this point.

On the 1 hand you have the unions trying to kind of look into the future and project their fears and concerns and act now.

And on the other hand, you have the studios and big Hollywood executives saying that they're being slightly sort of hysterical, if you were.

I mean, given just the huge difference in how both sides even see the dangers of AI and what's coming, it's very hard to see how they're going to agree anytime soon.

And we are now already a week into this strike.

I mean, in terms of what should be happening in Hollywood, what's already been affected?

So this week saw the start of Comic-Con, which is this huge gathering of comic book fans from around the world.

They get super dressed up and they go to San Diego to meet their favorite comic book artists and writers.

Normally, some of the big Hollywood stars that star in the Marvel adaptations of comic books and that kind of thing.

This year, some of those big stars haven't turned up because of the strikes, because not only is acting off the cards, it's everything that goes alongside the making of a movie.

So it's the promotions, the premieres, interviews.

So it's been much less of a star-studded sort of event, which to be honest, for some comic book diehard fans, is a bit of a relief they can get back to basics.

We also had the first major premiere this week where no big stars turned up.

There's Mickey and Minnie in their Halloween-inspired outfits here in New Orleans Square.

So it was a Disney film, Haunted Mansion, and the premiere still went ahead, but instead of stars like Tiffany Haddish and Jamie Lee Curtis turning up on the red carpet because they were striking and staying at home, instead Disney brought out kind of theme park characters to waddle down and do the rounds, which was pretty strange.

And there are various Disney villains rotating for follow-ups as well.

I'm not sure that's what the crowds came for.

And Constance, What about the broader impact of these strikes?

I mean, I guess we won't be seeing any new TV or film content for a while.

Yeah, I mean within a couple of months you'll notice that new content kind of dry up unless we see an immediate resolution to the disputes.

So already ABC is going to be showing a lot more reality TV and game shows in the autumn.

Things like Celebrity Wheel of Fortune and Dancing with the Stars.

Instead of new scripted content, We have blockbuster films that we could be expecting next summer, like Deadpool 3, that could be delayed.

So essentially you feel the impact first on late night TV, then on TV shows and then on films based on their kind of various lengths of production timelines.

And Constance, will we be seeing the strike playing out here in the UK as well?

In Britain we have a law that forbids what we call secondary striking so striking in support of other strikers so unlike in Canada where actors are going on strike in support of their American counterparts it's actually illegal to do so in the UK.

So Equity, the Actors Union, will be kind of staging some events to show solidarity and that kind of thing, but they cannot call a strike in solidarity.

Could they call a strike because they're also feeling the effects of streamers and the pressures of potentially of AI?

I mean, collective bargaining agreements in the UK are far weaker.

You don't have to be a member of Equity to perform in British films or TV shows, which means that their impact is often pretty limited.

That doesn't mean they can't call on and they might, but you won't be seeing the kind of far-reaching implications in the same way as you do in Hollywood.

I mean, we haven't seen an industry-wide strike like this since

We have had a writer's strike more recently, back in

And there was a real impact on Hollywood and how things played out.

Yeah, so I mean if we cast our minds back, George Bush was still president the last time the writers went on strike and it was between November 2007 and February 2008.

The main thing then that writers worried about was their work being shared online.

I mean for the first time people could buy episodes of TV shows or films maybe via Apple, they could watch them on their iPods, and there was this then relatively new concept known as streaming.

And back then, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers wanted essentially to be able to stream content without paying the writers any more money.

They were arguing basically that streaming was a separate thing and it was just kind of promotion.

You know we're here at the base of the Die Hard building so I guess the slogan of the day should be Yippee-ki-yay, motherfuckers.

Mike Scully wrote that for me before I came up here.

I guess that technically makes him a scab, but let's give him a break.

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Why Hollywood shut down