In a historic moment, over 160,000 TV and movie actors are joining scriptwriters in a Hollywood walkout, per the New York Times. The Writers Guild of America (WGA) initiated a strike in early May, demanding higher pay while expressing concern over the increasing role of artificial intelligence in TV writing. Now, actors are joining in with similar dissent. Brooke Barnes reports,

The eyes of the world and, particularly, the eyes of labor are upon us,” Fran Drescher, the president of SAG-AFTRA, said. “What happens to us is important. What’s happening to us is happening across all fields of labor. When employers make Wall Street and greed their priority and they forget about the essential contributors who make the machine run, we have a problem.

Hollywood Actors Vote to Strike: Live Updates – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

The cast for the upcoming film “Oppenheimer” walked out of the premiere in London in “solidarity” with the union. With that number of actors striking, Hollywood will effectively shut down. That hasn’t happened in 63 years.

This is breaking news; more reports unfolding in real time. Stay tuned.