Glee star Darren Criss has weighed in on the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike in Hollywood, revealing to 9Honey Celebrity that it’s not about actors wanting more money.
Best known for his roles as Blaine Anderson on Glee and Andrew Cunanan in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, Criss is standing in solidarity with the strike.
“This isn’t an actor saying, ‘We want more money’,” he tells 9Honey Celebrity.
“These are workers saying, ‘We deserve to be treated more fairly and those in charge do not need to be benefiting from proactively trying to make our lives difficult’.
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“Surprise, surprise; big corporations tend to take a big cut of things that perhaps they shouldn’t, when looking at the disparity in wealth between their employees and the bosses.”
A-listers like Jack Black, Daniel Radcliffe, Aubrey Plaza, Vanessa Hudgens, Hilary Duff and more have been photographed on the picket lines supporting the strike recently.
But their appearances have led some critics to claim actors already make enough money and shouldn’t complain, let alone strike, but Criss says that’s a myth.
“There are actors that do make a significant amount of money that are in the minority of performers, and there is a huge percent of actors that do not fall under that category,” the Emmy and Golden Globe winner says.
“For people on the outside looking in, this seems like a classic case of a disparity in wealth,” he continues.
“But this is not about some of the more famous names that you would associate with making millions of dollars… the livelihood of so many people is being threatened.”
Most SAG-AFTRA members are small-time actors, not multi-millionaire movie stars, and they need Hollywood contracts to keep up with the rapidly changing entertainment industry.
The rise of streaming platforms, shorter TV seasons and longer filming breaks has made it harder than ever for actors to maintain a middle-class lifestyle.
Which is why actors are demanding higher residual payments when their work airs on streaming services and assurances about the use of AI in future projects.
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Criss says that at the end of the day the ongoing SAG-AFTRA is just like any other labour dispute between employing entities and workers.
The only difference is that this strike comes with an all-star cast.
“It’s an interesting conflict because it does involve something that wouldn’t exist in any other industry, which is celebrated people,” Criss says.
“If we were painters or something, a dispute between us and our employers and our union is not going to make headline news because the people on the picket lines aren’t people that are on posters in your bedroom.”
Though the Glee alum understands why there are so many misconceptions about the ongoing strike, he stands in solidarity with every other actor on the picket line.
Even though that means he can’t speak publicly about his most famous projects while promoting his upcoming music tour of Australia, which kicks off in early September.
He first toured Down Under in 2018 and promises fans will get everything from “whacky synth pop”, to jazz and even a few tracks from his TV and Broadway career when he returns.
“I am sort of this living playlist of a lot of songs that have been featured throughout my career,” he says.
“It’s a bit of everything. I’ve done theatre stuff and TV stuff, I’ve done music of my own, I’ve written for other things, music from YouTube days. All of that will be there.”
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That even includes tracks from A Very Potter Musical, the parody production that went viral on YouTube in 2009 and kicked off Criss’ Hollywood career.
Though he never expected the college show would shoot him to fame, it holds a special place in his heart and he’s excited to perform some of the tracks again 14 years on.
Darren Criss returns to Australia for a five-city national tour starting September 3, 2023. Tickets to all shows go on sale on Thursday, 27 July 2023.
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