In 1985, Valley of the Dolls and The Miracle Employee actress Patty Duke turned the second-ever lady to guide the Display screen Actors Guild as president, a place she crammed for 3 years.
Now, many years later, her son Sean Astin is searching for to observe in her footsteps. The actor, maybe finest recognized for his position because the loyal hobbit hero Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings, is operating for president of the present iteration of the movie and TV actors’ union, The Hollywood Reporter has realized.
In an interview, Astin pointed to his years on nationwide and L.A. Native boards and on 5 separate negotiating committees as key preparatory steps for the highest job at SAG-AFTRA. “It seems like this second is a end result of all of that work,” he mentioned. “The time feels prefer it’s completely proper and I’m excited to do it.”
Fran Drescher, who has led the union as president since 2021 and managed the group by means of the onset of the generative AI period and its grueling 118-day strike in 2023, is claimed to have determined to not run once more. Drescher, nonetheless, couldn’t be reached on Friday to substantiate or deny.
Astin is operating alongside Blindspot and Star Trek: Picard actor Michelle Hurd, who’s searching for the place of secretary-treasurer. The union’s present secretary-treasurer, Joely Fisher (Ellen, The Masks), will flip her consideration to operating for president of the Los Angeles Native Board alongside Abbott Elementary star Lisa Ann Walter, who will run because the Native’s first vp, and David Jolliffe (ParaNorman), who will once more run for second vp. Their mixed political slate is known as “The Coalition 2025.”
Fisher factors to the downturn in native Los Angeles manufacturing, particularly because the 2023 strikes, because the impetus for her to run as president of its Native. “I’m turning my nationwide focus to my hometown,” she mentioned, including that she needs to make this “the golden age of Hollywood.”
In an announcement, secretary-treasurer hopeful Hurd mentioned she is operating as a result of “each member deserves to understand how our union’s sources are getting used — and to belief that they’re getting used properly.”
Their slate will concentrate on sturdy contracts, healthcare reforms, AI protections, stronger residuals, secure working circumstances and listening to the distinctive wants of the union’s 25 Locals, Astin mentioned. “We’re an enormous union with loads of constituencies which can be entitled to and deserve and actually require fierce advocacy,” he added.
The complete panorama of potential rivals isn’t but clear, as candidates have till 5 p.m. on Friday to submit their nominating petitions. What is thought is that SAG-AFTRA New England Native board member Chuck Slavin is operating for president alongside secretary-treasurer hopeful Peter Antico on a platform of transparency for members and union well being plan reforms.
Whoever wins the upcoming election will probably be confronted with a right away take a look at of management. Subsequent 12 months, the union will return to the negotiating desk with studios and streamers for the primary time since its 2023 strike in a challenged place, with a contraction within the enterprise having squeezed employment alternatives for its 160,000-odd members. The union might want to revisit the AI protections in its contract after three years of technological advances and wage the continual battle of securing its well being and pension plans.
The subsequent crop of SAG-AFTRA leaders will even be confronted with the difficulty of runaway manufacturing. After California legislators handed reforms to the state’s tax credit score program and Gov. Gavin Newsom injected it with new funding, consideration is popping to an effort to launch federal movie and tv tax incentive laws in D.C. Odds are that the actors’ union, with its star energy and politico ties, will probably be a key participant in that battle.
The complete checklist of SAG-AFTRA political candidates is anticipated to be launched subsequent week. Election ballots will probably be collected between August 13 and September 12.