Look, there are a lot of angry people in Hollywood right now. That’s just a by-product of watching two of the three major guilds (the WGA and SAG) both striking at the same time. And unlike other strikes or near-strikes, this one does seem like it has an existential threat looming over the negotiations. Actors and writers are fearing for their careers and not just trying to get a bigger piece of the financial pie. So, when tensions are at this level, things are going to be said that probably shouldn’t. That’s what we’re seeing with recent comments from actor Ron Perlman.
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For context, the actors recently joined the writers on strike. It seems as if SAG might have the more privileged position between those two friendly guilds (productions have completely ceased since SAG went on strike, but most had been going on without the writers), and this has led to something becoming brutally clear—the studios think they can exist (at least for the foreseeable future) without the WGA. This was illustrated clearly in a recent report from Deadline, which quoted an anonymous studio executive who said the studios were going to let the WGA “bleed out” before resuming negotiations. “The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,” the executive added.
That quote send shockwaves through Hollywood, with many taking to social media to talk about how repugnant they were. Actor Ron Perlman saw the quote and took to Instagram Live (now deleted) and had some choice words for the anonymous studio executive.
“Listen to me, motherfucker, there’s a lot of ways to lose your house,” the actor said. “Some of it is financial, some of it is karma, and some of it is just figuring out who the fuck said that — and we know who said that — and where he fucking lives. There’s a lot of ways to lose your house. You wish that on people. You wish that families starve while you’re making $27 fucking million a year for creating nothing? Be careful, motherfucker. Be really careful, ’cause that’s the kind of shit that stirs shit up. Peace out.”
Obviously, those words were a bit unfortunate, as Perlman realized that a perceived threat of violence is not going to help the negotiations at all. Now on Instagram, he’s basically walked back those comments, realized he was too heated, and said he doesn’t “wish anybody any harm.”
“With the announcement of the actors going out on strike this morning, I took to Instagram Live to give a background of my experience as a guild member and to give some of my reactions to the current events while we find ourselves in this situation,” Perlman said. “In the aftermath of that, there has been a lot of reaction, mainly because at one point, admittedly, I got quite heated because I was talking about a quote from one of the executives on the other side of the negations talking about how they planned to not even begin negotiating until writers and actors started losing their houses and their apartments.”
He continued, “And so you can imagine my reaction to somebody wishing that kind of harm on people in the very same industry that they call their own would engender a response, so let me make something very clear right now: I don’t wish anybody any harm. I hope the asshole who made that comment also doesn’t wish anybody any harm, but when you start going around and saying we’re not even going to bargain with these fucking dickheads until they start fuck-ing bleeding and their families start bleeding… I mean, if you want to talk about some of the shit that makes people so cynical and so pissed off with our current climate, I mean this strike is just sort of… it’s a symptom of a struggle that’s way bigger than the strike itself. It’s a symptom of the soullessness of corporate America and how everything has become corporatized in this country.”
Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that resolutions in either strike are happening anytime soon. The industry has come to a complete standstill, and we have only just begun to see the fallout. It’s a scary time for folks in Hollywood. So, let’s hope for a change in negotiation tactics by the studios soon enough.