“‘I found him terribly repugnant and out of touch, and positively tone-deaf. … If I were that company, I would lock him behind doors and never let him talk to anybody about this.’”
That was Fran Drescher, the SAG-AFTRA president and former “The Nanny” star, responding in a Variety interview to Walt Disney
DIS,
Chief Executive Bob Iger after he said this week that striking Hollywood actors and writers aren’t being “realistic” in their expectations.
Drescher also compared Iger to a “land baron of a medieval time.”
SAG-AFTRA union actors went on strike this week after negotiations with major studios and streaming giants such as Disney, Sony
SONY,
Netflix
NFLX,
and Apple
AAPL,
failed to produce a contract agreement, and their contracts expired Wednesday. The actors joined Writers Guild of America members, who have been on strike since May over wages and other issues.
Iger said in a CNBC interview Thursday that this is the “worst time in the world to add to [the] disruption” in the entertainment industry, citing what he called an incomplete recovery from COVID-19 and other forces including technology. Among the tech-related issues in the negotiations: how much in residuals actors should receive from streaming platforms, and the use of artificial intelligence, or AI, to represent actors’ likenesses.
Iger said those who are on strike are “adding to the set of the challenges that this business is already facing that is, quite frankly, very disruptive.”
Dresher told Variety on Friday that Iger’s comments showed he is out of touch with actors who “don’t make anywhere near the salary that he’s making,” which she called “crazy money.”
According to Disney’s most recent annual report, Iger’s total compensation in 2022 was right under $15 million. Iger, who retired from Disney in 2021 and then returned to the company last year after his successor was fired, received compensation of nearly $46 million in 2021 and $21 million the year before that.
Disney did not respond to a request for comment.
According to SAG-AFTRA’s most recent rate sheet for productions with a budget of at least $2 million, the minimum daily pay rate for actors hired on a daily basis and without a long-term contract, also known as day performers, was $1,082.
In a statement this week, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said it had offered the actors historic pay and residual increases, among other things, and that the union “regrettably” walked away from negotiations.
Drescher and other SAG-AFTRA leaders said earlier this week that the studios had refused to negotiate in good faith.
From our archives (May 2023): Are Hollywood writing jobs the next frontier for gig work? Here’s what a striking writer says.