Arrowverse star Stephen Amell is scheduled to meet with the SAG-AFTRA leadership, but he remains opposed to the ongoing Hollywood strike.
The strike, which involves thousands of SAG-AFTRA members, has been criticized by Amell. His comments have sparked backlash from social media users and industry professionals, especially actors and writers.
On Tuesday, Amell issued a statement to address his contentious remarks about the striking workers, which was met with mixed reactions. However, the former CW star further expressed his views in a new interview with TMZ.
Amell stated that he supports his union and plans to meet with SAG leadership “today,” and claimed that he has received private backing from other actors who share his perspective.
In a subsequent clip (via @sagesurge ), Amell regretted that his initial comments became public, saying the following:
I understand the strike on an intellectual level – striking is not the only form of negotiating. If there is a positive thing to take away from this – and believe me, Harvey, I’m searching for the positives right now because the past day or so has not been the most fun – if there is a positive here, I would like to think that on some shape or form I can encourage people to get back to the table and negotiate. I think, again, one of the silver linings that come out of this is [that] I’m going to get the opportunity later today to speak with SAG leadership to show them how much I support them and want to stand with them. But just because I agree with…you know, I love my co-workers, I love my wife, and I love my kids very much, that doesn’t mean that I always agree with the choices that they make. But I will never ever leave them in a time of need and I won’t do that to my union.
Amell further spoke about his stance, where he talked about people who have reached out to him in support. Here’s the quote:
I’ve gotten an extreme amount of support, a lot of people that reached out, a lot of people that have been quiet, but I woke up this morning to 60+ text messages from people. I’m not going to say who they are and they support the union too, they really do. But we live in a time right now – and I don’t want to wax too poetic here – where people want you to vote as long as you’re their candidate.
Amell also spoke of projects he had been working on before the strike and other such projects which have been affected because of the strike. Here’s what he said –
I think that this has been done in a very black-and-white all-or-nothing sort of way and I’m talking about shows and movies that were about to come out before the strike and I’m speaking specifically about shows that I and a bunch of other people pour their heart and soul into that happen to be coming within a certain window after the strike and I don’t think some of the consideration that was given to other projects leading up to the strike – and the delay of the strike – was given to some of the projects that came on the other side. That’s something that, retrospectively, I should have done a better job of taking up in private with the leadership of my union, people that I greatly respect and admire and look forward to talking to.
Finally, he mentioned that he did not want his comments to go public, but would want people to get back to work soon.
I’m going to take a little bit of a quiet moment and try to unplug a little bit, but I’ll tell you what: I’ll do anything within my power, and if that is being the first one to cross the line a little bit – no pun intended – if that’s going to help this process, that I am more than happy to take those slings and arrows. I don’t consider myself to be a martyr, and quite frankly, I would have preferred that these comments never became public, but they did and here we are. Hopefully, it can just lead to a broader discussion and we can get people back to work.
The controversy started on July 31, when a clip emerged from Galaxycon where Amell expressed his displeasure about the SAG-AFTRA strike, despite being a union member. Amell said he does “not support striking,” as he considers it a “reductive negotiating tactic.”
Within a few hours, Amell became a trending topic as many people objected to his remarks. From then on, everyone was expecting Amell to respond to his controversial statement from the convention. On August 1, Amell posted on Instagram, where he explained his views in detail.
In the lengthy post, the former superhero actor maintained his position that, although he supports his union, he feels it is frustrating. As per Amell, he understands the reason behind the strike from an intellectual perspective, but it still frustrates him from an emotional perspective.
On the same day as he shared his public statement on social media, TMZ broadcasted their interview, which also saw Amell strongly suggest he did not vote in favor of the strike during SAG’s authorization vote.
The outcome of this situation, and its impact on Amell’s SAG-AFTRA membership, is uncertain at this time. Whether any of Amell’s statements today will satisfy his detractors is doubtful at this stage. However, it is evident that Amell, in a short span of time, managed to create quite a commotion as the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes persist.
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