Bryan Cranston had a message for Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger during a SAG-AFTRA protest rally held in Times Square on Tuesday: Corporate greed cannot take away an actor’s dignity and right to work.
Per Variety, the “Breaking Bad” actor gave an impassioned speech during a “Rock the City for a Fair Contract” rally in New York City, speaking out on conditions of the strike but also pointedly delivering words for Iger. The CEO, whose Disney contract was extended through 2026 literally the day before the SAG-AFTRA strike began, called actors’ and writers’ demands out of the ongoing strikes “not realistic” and “very disturbing.”
“We’ve got a message for Mr. Iger,” Cranston said. “I know, sir, that you look [at] things through a different lens. We don’t expect you to understand who we are. But we ask you to hear us, and beyond that to listen to us when we tell you we will not be having our jobs taken away and given to robots. We will not have you take away our right to work and earn a decent living. And lastly, and most importantly, we will not allow you to take away our dignity! We are union through and through, all the way to the end!”
Not longer before the strike, Iger joked during a Disney earnings call in May that he was “looking forward to a time where maybe AI does earnings calls for me” (via New York Post). The threat of artificial intelligence as a strategy for reducing casting costs and owning actors’ likenesses in perpetuity is one of the main concerns of SAG-AFTRA in its tussle with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).
Earlier in the speech, Cranston called upon the AMPTP to get with the times in terms of negotiations with writers and actors on outmoded contracts that ignore 21st-century concerns: namely streaming residuals and the pervasive reality of AI as a storytelling tool.
“Our industry has changed exponentially,” he said. “We are not in the same business model we were even 10 years ago. And yet, even though they admit that is the truth in today’s economy, they are fighting us tooth and nail to stick to the same economic system that is outmoded, outdated! They want us to step back in time. We cannot and we will not do that.”
According to Variety, those in attendance at the reality included Steve Buscemi, Wendell Pierce, Christian Slater, Christine Baranski, Stephen Lang, Tituss Burgess, Michael Shannon, BD Wong, Brendan Fraser, Jessica Chastain, Matt Bomer, Chloë Grace Moretz, and Corey Stoll.
Variety shared video of the speech here.
