Actor of the hit series Succession Brian Cox joined hundreds of other British actors in a rally in central London on Friday in support of their American colleagues’ strike against pay cuts and the threat of artificial intelligence. Imelda Staunton (The Crown, Harry Potter), Simon Pegg (Mission: Impossible), Hayley Atwell (Peggy Carter in the Marvel universe) and Jim Carter (Downton Abbey) also took part in this event in Leicester Square, in the heart of the capital’s cinema district, including the Odeon. Holding flags of the British Actors Union Equity, they expressed their solidarity with their American counterpart, the US Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA).
More than 160,000 American film and television actors went on strike last week, joining the movement launched several weeks ago by screenwriters. They denounced the drop in wages in the era of streaming and the threat that artificial intelligence (AI) poses to their jobs, in a movement not seen in more than 60 years in Hollywood.
In London, Scottish actor Brian Cox, 77, who plays media mogul Logan Roy in HBO’s hit series Succession, told AFP that the use of AI in the film industry poses a “very serious” threat that must be stopped. “We are going down a terrible slope … because our image (on the screen) is so strong and they can take these images and do what they want with us,” he explained, targeting the producers. “They shouldn’t be allowed to do that. We will stop this,” he added.
