Andor has picked up a well-deserved eight Emmy nominations, including a nod for Outstanding Drama. Whether it can triumph over Succession and The Last of Us remains to be seen, though Lucasfilm will be overjoyed that Star Wars is building awards season buzz.
You’d expect showrunner Tony Gilroy to be celebrating, too, but it seems he’s in a rather gloomy mood after the studios have refused to budge on strike negotiations, with SAG-AFTRA also about to down tools. But, in an interview with Deadline, he’s adamant that the fight must go on:
“I think this is the existential battle that I thought we were having in 2007. … To my great disappointment we settled that strike prematurely. I think those problems were deferred. I think there are structural problems that need to be repaired.”
Gilroy went on to underline that this is ultimately creatives vs. executives, and the soul of the industry is on the line:
“I think SAG and the Writers Guild are trying to preserve our industry. In such a strange way, we’ve become the creators and the interpreters, the creative community are becoming the protectors of this industry, this huge industry that people love, and the caretakers on the other side, I think they’re being recklessly careless. I think in the end this time the guilds will prevail. They have to,“
It’s looking very likely that SAG-AFTRA will indeed begin its strike later today. It represents 160,000 actors, with the strike action massively increasing the pressure on studios to make concessions. While many productions – like Andor – have managed to work around the WGA strike by shooting completed scripts, production will obviously come to a standstill without actors.
Then again, with high-ranking producers admitting that their tactic is to allow the strike to continue “until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,” it sounds like knives are being sharpened for what studios consider “a cruel but necessary evil.”
Well, at least it’s obvious who the bad guys are here.