Actors leave their own movie premiere
The A-list cast of Oppenheimer have abruptly left the London premiere of the highly-anticipated movie.
Stars of the film such as Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, and Florence Pugh disappeared from the premiere, shortly after appearing on the red carpet.
The film, about Robert Oppenheimer who was key in the creation of the nuclear bomb, is set to be one of the biggest films of the year, with thousands of fans turning up to London’s Leicester Square to celebrate its premiere.
However, before the movie could even begin inside the theatre, the stars walked out, leaving director Christopher Nolan to wonder where they were.
Nolan later told Variety that the actors walked out of the event in solidarity with a just-called Hollywood actors strike.
“You’ve seen them here earlier on the red carpet,” he said.
“Unfortunately, they’re off to write their picket signs for what we believe to be an imminent strike by SAG, joining one of my guilds, the Writers Guild, in the struggle for fair wages for working members of the unions, and we support them.”
SAG-AFTRA is the Screen Actors Guild which represents 160,000 performers including A-list stars.
SAG members will now go on strike, joining writers in the first industry-wide shutdown in 63 years after last-ditch talks over dwindling pay and the threat posed by artificial intelligence failed, with nearly all film and television production set to grind to a halt.
“SAG-AFTRA’s national board unanimously voted to issue a strike order against the studios and streamers,” said the union’s chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland.
At the Oppenheimer premiere, Matt Damon warned on the red carpet that he and his fellow stars were about to bail.
“Once the strike is officially called, we’re going to walk obviously in solidarity”.
“That’s why we moved this [event] up because we know the second it’s called, we’re going home,” he said.
Image credits: Getty Images