Sean Gunn, who played Stars Hollow’s eccentric wannabe filmmaker Kirk on “Gilmore Girls”, is among the actors who hit the picket lines on Friday after SAG-AFTRA voted to strike.
Interviewed by The Hollywood Reporter, Gunn — who’s the brother of DC Studios’ co-head James Gunn — discussed the issues at stake for actors, and cited Netflix’s acquisition of “Gilmore Girls” as an example of what he characterizes as unfair compensation for actors.
According to Gunn, he “particularly wanted to come out and protest Netflix” because he believes he and other actors who appeared in “Gilmore Girls” have not been receiving an equitable share of the profits from the show.
“I was on a television show called ‘Gilmore Girls’ for a long time that has brought in massive profits for Netflix,” he explained. “It has been one of their most popular shows for a very long time, over a decade. It gets streamed over and over and over again, and I see almost none of the revenue that comes into that.”
As THR pointed out, Gunn and the other actors receive residuals from the show from Warner Bros. Discovery — the studio that produced “Gilmore Girls” and licensed the show to Netflix; however, those residuals remain the same, regardless of how many people stream the series on Netflix.
Meanwhile, Gunn explained, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos and executive chair Reed Hastings have given “each other bonuses in the tens of millions of dollars” while the compensation given to him and his “Gilmore Girls” co-stars has remained static.
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SAG-AFTRA Announces Historic Double Strike As Actors Join Writers On Picket Line
“I don’t understand why they can’t lessen those bonuses to share the wealth more with the people who have created the content that has gotten them rich,” he said.
“It really is a travesty. And if the answer is, ‘Well, this is just how business is done, this is just how corporate business works,’ that sucks. That makes you a bad person. And you really need to rethink how you do business and share the wealth with people. Otherwise, this is all going to come crashing down,” he warned.
Click to View Gallery All The Movies & TV Shows Affected As Actors Join Writers On Strike