Oppenheimer Cast Will Walk Out of Premiere If SAG-AFTRA Strikes

UPDATE: Christopher Nolan announced the Oppenheimer cast left the U.K. premiere in solidarity with the SAG-AFTRA strike imminent, Variety reports. (For more, click here.) The original story continues below.

The Screen Actors Guild – the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists dropped a bomb on Thursday: the actors' union voted unanimously to strike. The union's National Board will convene today to hold a vote and formally approve the SAG-AFTRA strike, which would see the approximately 160,000 members it represents — actors, announcers, voiceover artists, and other media professionals — join the Writers Guild of America on the picket lines. It also includes the cast of Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, who are prepared to walk out of the film's ongoing London premiere should the union call an actors' strike. 

"I think right now we are just sorting of... I hope everyone makes a fair deal and we are here to celebrate this movie. And if they call it, we'll be leaving together as cast in unity with everyone," cast member Emily Blunt told Deadline at the Oppenheimer premiere. "We are gonna have to. We are gonna have to. We will see what happens. Right now it's the joy to be together."

A SAG strike would not only shut down all film and television productions, but would prohibit actors and other union members from participating in all acting work and promotion — including press junkets, social media, San Diego Comic-Con, and film premieres.

Variety reported that studio Universal Pictures moved up the Oppenheimer premiere start from 5:45 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. London time in anticipation of a strike. Should the union's negotiating committee officially call for a SAG strike while the Oppenheimer premiere is ongoing, the cast would stage a walkout, effective immediately.

In Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy leads a starry cast that includes Blunt (A Quiet Place) as Oppenheimer's wife, biologist and botanist Katherine "Kitty" Oppenheimer, Matt Damon (AIR) as General Leslie Groves Jr., director of the Manhattan Project, and Robert Downey Jr. (Avengers: Endgame) as Lewis Strauss, a founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Oppenheimer also reunites Nolan with his Batman star Gary Oldman as Harry S. Truman and features a cast that includes Florence Pugh (Dune: Part Two) as psychiatrist Jean Tatlock, Benny Safdie (Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret) as theoretical physicist Edward Teller, Michael Angarano (Minx) as Robert Serber, and Josh Hartnett (30 Days of Night) as pioneering American nuclear scientist Ernest Lawrence.

"Ben [Affleck] and I just started this little independent studio, and we're three and a half movies in — we're shut down on one of them right now," Blunt's co-star, Matt Damon, told Deadline about the work stoppage amid the ongoing WGA strike. "We're just waiting for everything to resolve. It's brutal for our sister unions, it's brutal for IATSE [the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees]. And it's going to be tough for the actors, for 160,000 actors."

"Nobody wants a work stoppage, but if our leadership is saying that the deal isn't fair, then we gotta hold strong until we get a deal that's fair for working actors," Damon continued. "It's the difference between having health care and not for a lot of actors, and we've gotta do what's right by them."

Among SAG-AFTRA's primary wants are "economic fairness, residuals, regulating the use of artificial intelligence and alleviating the burdens of the industry-wide shift to self-taping."

"SAG-AFTRA is committed to ensuring our members are able to make a living performing in scripted dramatic live action entertainment," the union said in a statement. "This means ensuring increased compensation when our members work, shoring up the funding of our Health, Retirement, and Pension Plans, and providing our members a meaningful share of the economic value created by their performances."

On Thursday, SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said that SAG-AFTRA "negotiated in good faith and was eager to reach a deal that sufficiently addressed performer needs, but the AMPTP's responses to the union's most important proposals have been insulting and disrespectful of our massive contributions to this industry." According to Drescher, "The companies have refused to meaningfully engage on some topics and on others completely stonewalled us. Until they do negotiate in good faith, we cannot begin to reach a deal."

See the full SAG-AFTRA statement below. 

After more than four weeks of bargaining, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) — the entity that represents major studios and streamers, including Amazon, Apple, Disney, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount, Sony and Warner Bros. Discovery — remains unwilling to offer a fair deal on the key issues that are essential to SAG-AFTRA members. 

In the face of the AMPTP's intransigence and delay tactics, SAG-AFTRA's negotiating committee voted unanimously to recommend to the National Board a strike of the Producers-SAG-AFTRA TV/Theatrical/Streaming Contracts which expired July 12, 2023, at 11:59 p.m. PT. 

SAG-AFTRA's National Board will vote Thursday morning on whether to strike.

SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher:

"SAG-AFTRA negotiated in good faith and was eager to reach a deal that sufficiently addressed performer needs, but the AMPTP's responses to the union's most important proposals have been insulting and disrespectful of our massive contributions to this industry. The companies have refused to meaningfully engage on some topics and on others completely stonewalled us. Until they do negotiate in good faith, we cannot begin to reach a deal. We have no choice but to move forward in unity, and on behalf of our membership, with a strike recommendation to our National Board. The board will discuss the issue this morning and will make its decision."

National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland:

"The studios and streamers have implemented massive unilateral changes in our industry's business model, while at the same time insisting on keeping our contracts frozen in amber. That's not how you treat a valued, respected partner and essential contributor. Their refusal to meaningfully engage with our key proposals and the fundamental disrespect shown to our members is what has brought us to this point. The studios and streamers have underestimated our members' resolve, as they are about to fully discover."

The union will hold a press conference today, Thursday, July 13th, at 12 noon PT at SAG-AFTRA Plaza in Los Angeles, following the conclusion of the National Board vote.