By Danielle Broadway
LOS ANGELES – Laz Alonso recalled his days as an aspiring actor trying to break into the industry with the preconceived notion that all actors were rich.
“It’s very easy to think all the Hollywood stars or anybody in Hollywood is rich and swimming in money in a swimming pool. That’s just not the case,” Alonso said as he marched in solidarity with the striking Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) during a picket outside the Amazon Studios lot.
While Alonso is now well-known for his role as Mother’s Milk on the Prime Video show “The Boys,” he began his career with many smaller roles on lower budget projects.
“It’s a very blue-collar industry. It takes a very, very long time for most people to be considered working consistently,” he said.
Hollywood’s actors union voted to authorize a strike in early June, and if contract talks fail between chief negotiators and studios by the Friday contract deadline, they will join the WGA on the picket lines to demand new contracts from film and television studios.
The SAG-AFTRA actors union said 97.91% of ballots cast supported strike authorization.
Nearly 65,000 members, or about 48% of those eligible, voted on the measure.
One of the biggest changes that both actors and writers are advocating for is increased base compensation in a television world in which streaming has shortened series and reduced employment, endangering their financial health. — Reuters
