SAG President slams producers’ offer as ‘appalling and revolting!’

Screen Actors Guild President Fran Drescher Slams “Egregious and Disgusting” Offer

Screen Actors Guild President Fran Drescher did not hold back in her response to the latest offer from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), calling it “egregious and disgusting.”

Drescher addressed the offer during a press conference on Thursday, where the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) announced their decision to join the Writers Guild of America (WGA) in a historic double strike reminiscent of the 1960s.

Controversy Over AI Usage

One of the major points of contention for SAG-AFTRA members is the potential use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to recreate actors’ likenesses without their consent or compensation. This issue was highlighted in the recent offer from the AMPTP.

“So the AMPTP just sent out a press release basically saying… you guys have chosen a path that will lead to financial hardship for countless thousands of people who depend on the industry,” a reporter began, summarizing the offer.

“Not having seen their press release, I can’t respond to every point of it,” said SAG-AFTRA’s chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree. “But this groundbreaking AI proposal that they gave us yesterday? In that groundbreaking AI proposal, they proposed that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get paid for one day’s work, and their company should own that scan, their image, their likeness, and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity in any project they want with no consent and no compensation. So if you think that’s a groundbreaking proposal, I suggest you think again.”

A reporter then posed a similar question to Drescher, asking if the offer was truly historic.

Drescher’s Response: “Egregious and Disgusting!”

“What was historic about it is that we were really so marginalized, so dishonored and so disrespected that it was really egregious and disgusting!” Drescher passionately replied. “So that’s what was historic, that at a moment when streaming and AI and digital is so prevalent in the industry, it has disemboweled the industry that we once knew. When I did The Nanny and everybody was part of the gravy train. Now it’s a walled-in vacuum. And not only is it unfair to everybody up and down the ladder, but the entity that employs us, it’s really un-American and it’s unconscionable.”