Sean Penn is standing in solidarity with the Writers Guild of America (WGA), whose members are now on strike to fight for better wages and work conditions in the streaming era, reports ‘Variety’.
“The industry has been upending, namely the writers and the actors and directors, for a very, very long time,” Penn said during Friday’s press conference at Cannes for his latest movie ‘Black Flies’, which debuted in competition at the film festival.
“My full support is with the writers guild. There are a lot of new concepts that are being tossed about, including the use of AI. And it just strikes me as human obscenity that there’s been pushback [from the studios] on that,” the actor said, according to ‘Variety’.
Penn also slammed producers as a ‘bankers guild’ and added, naming the wrong organisation, that “the first thing we should do in these [strike] conversations is change [name of] the Producers Guild and title them how they behave, which is the bankers guild. It’s difficult for so many writers and people in the industry who cannot work.”
After the press conference, Penn released a statement to ‘Variety’ saying, “I misspoke. I meant to say AMPTP [Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers], not PGA.”
