Tom Cruise Lobbied Studios on SAG-AFTRA Stunt and AI Positions (Exclusive)

How important is the AI ​​issue to SAG-AFTRA members? Important enough that Tom Cruise zoomed in on a June negotiating session to urge the Alliance of Film and Television Producers to listen to the guild’s concerns on the matter, The Hollywood Reporter He learned.

That wasn’t the Mission Impossible star’s only concern. He also wanted to urge the AMPTP to support the guild’s stance on stunt performers.

Cruise also had a few words for SAG-AFTRA representatives regarding the delicate post-pandemic state of theaters.

SAG-AFTRA sometimes calls artists during negotiation sessions to discuss issues in which they have experience. Any member can request to participate in a negotiation session and the guild can consider having them participate. The guild apparently concluded that Cruise’s point of view was worthy. It is understood that no other star of her caliber attended the negotiations in this capacity.

SAG-AFTRA had a handful of proposals on the table involving stunt professionals, including stunt coordinators and stunt performers, represented by the 160,000-strong union. The union also sought to institute more barriers on the use of generative AI in entertainment in its 2023 talks with studios and streamers, focusing on ensuring artists give consent and are adequately compensated when their performances are absorbed by the technology.

Of course, despite Cruise’s participation in the talks, after about five weeks the artists union and the AMPTP were unable to reach an agreement by Wednesday night’s deadline on the union’s package of film and television contracts. Beginning July 14, artists began picketing studio lots and corporate headquarters in New York and Los Angeles and suspending their work, which subsequently disrupted and delayed productions including Mission impossible 8.

In addition to lobbying studios and streamers on behalf of SAG-AFTRA, Cruise is said to have asked the union to consider allowing actors to promote films during a strike, given the fragile state of movie theaters and reminding the his union that promotion is also important for actors. . He looked “uncomfortable,” says a source who was present.

SAG-AFTRA strike rules in force they argue that during the work stoppage, advertising, including “conferences, interviews, tours, or promotion via social media of any affected work or business, is expressly prohibited.”