SAG-AFTRA’s presence at TIFF continued into Saturday with a special picket outside Amazon offices here in Toronto with Canada’s commercial actors union ACTRA, who’ve been in a 501 day contract lockout with the country’s advertising agency’s org.

Patricia Arquette, whose feature directorial debut Gonzo Girl, played on Friday night at the fest, showed up to show her support alongside SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, who praised the Oscar winner for having a project under a SAG-AFTRA interim agreement.

Arquette painted the current standoff between actors and studios: “What we got is a low functioning dynamic, which is ‘I’m gonna get mine, and I don’t care what happens to you’ and have to shift to a high functioning dynamic which is ‘This is what I’d like, but I don’t want it, if it really hurts you.” “And this is really hurting people,” emphasized the actress.

Arquette told the crowd that she’s a fourth-generation actor, with a daughter who is a fifth-generation actor (Arquette’s daughter, Harlow Jane, stars in the Rebecca Miller directed, She Came to Me, opposite Anne Hathaway, Peter Dinklage and Marisa Tomei, due out this fall; also under a SAG-AFTRA agreement). “People like my dad, could not survive, could not feed kids, in the environment that we’re in today,” detailed Arquette,” There has to be something that’s fair so that they’re (studios) not taking advantage of people.” “Also, this AI situation is really critical, because first it will replace all the background actors, next it will replace all of the character actors, then they’ll build up movie stars from scratch, then eventually the bigger stars will get replaced by these new things,” said the Boyhood actr

Patricia Arquette Slams AI At SAG-AFTRA & ACTRA TIFF Picket: “All We’re Going To Have Is Giant, Mega Marvel Movies”

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