Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’ Cast Exits Premiere in Solidarity With SAG-AFTRA Strike

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer cast was prepared for the SAG-AFTRA strike to be called on Thursday. The London premiere of the film was moved up by an hour to buy themselves more time to complete interviews and press opportunities on the red carpet before they would be indefinitely barred from doing so without crossing the picket line. And sure enough, shortly after the carpet wrapped and the screening was set to begin, the entire cast left as the strike was officially announced.

“I have to acknowledge the work of our entire cast, led by Cillian Murphy. The list is enormous — Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh,” Nolan said the screening, listing off even more names, according to Deadline. “We have to acknowledge, you’ve seen them here earlier on the red carpet. Unfortunately, they’re off to write their picket signs for what we believe to be an imminent strike by SAG, joining one of my guilds, the writer’s guild, in the struggle for fair wages for working members of their union. We support them.”

Earlier in the day, on the red carpet, Damon told Variety: “We talked about it. Look, if it’s called now, everyone’s going to walk obviously in solidarity … Once the strike is officially called, [we’re walking]. That’s why we moved this [red carpet] up because we know the second it’s called, we’re going home.”

He added: “It’s really about working actors. It’s $26,000 to qualify for health coverage and a lot of people are on the margins and residual payments are getting them across that threshold. This isn’t an academic exercise. This is real life and death stuff. Hopefully we get to a resolution quickly. No one wants a work stoppage, but we’ve got to get a fair deal.”

Blunt echoed the point, stating: “Obviously we stand we all of the actors and at whatever point it’s called, we’re going to be going home and standing together through it because I want everyone to get a fair deal.”

The SAG-AFTRA strike arrives after four weeks of negotiations in which the 160,000-member Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists did not reach a new deal with the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents the movie studios and streaming services.

This impasse has now led to a historic double strike in which two crucial sides of the industry, both the writer and the actors, are standing in solidarity with one another to protest labor conditions.

“The board has determined that union members should withhold their labor, until a fair contract and be achieved a strike is an instrument of last resort, we tried for four weeks to reach a deal with the AMPTP. And unfortunately, they have left us with no alternative,” SAG-AFTRA’s national executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said at a Thursday press conference. “SAG-AFTRA as national board unanimously voted to issue a strike order against the studios and streamers.”