Nasty, tone-deaf – variety

SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher blasted Disney CEO Bob Iger during an interview with Disney diverse On the picket lines outside the Paramount Pictures studio set. In a July 13 interview with CNBC’s David Faber of the Sun Valley Conference, Iger said the WGA and SAG-AFTRA forwards were not “realistic” with their demands.

“I found them terribly obnoxious and out of touch. Positive tone deaf,” Drescher said when asked about Egger’s comments. “I don’t think it served him well. If I were in that company, I would lock him behind doors and not let him talk to anyone about it, because he clearly has no idea what on earth is really going on with hard working people who don’t make anything near the salary he gets. Seven high figures, eight figures, that’s crazy money they’re making, and they don’t care if they’re medieval land barons.”

Iger conducted his interview in Sun Valley just hours before Drescher officially called the SAG-AFTRA offensive, with the strike beginning on July 14.

“It’s very upsetting for me,” Egger said when asked about labor strikes. “We’ve talked about the disruptive forces in this business and all the challenges we face, the recovery from COVID that’s still going on, it’s not fully back. This is the worst time in the world that we’re adding to this disruption.”

Iger continued, “I understand the desire of any labor organization to act on behalf of its members to get the most pay and to be paid a fair wage based on the value they provide. We, as an industry, have been able to negotiate a very good deal with the managers union that reflects the value that they contribute.” The directors are in this great business. We wanted to do the same with the writers, and we’d like to do the same with the cast. There’s a level of expectation they have that’s unrealistic. And they add to the set of challenges this business already faces that, quite frankly, are very disruptive. “.

Drescher went viral while announcing the SAG-AFTRA strike on July 13 over her fiery speech condemning Hollywood studios.

We are the victims here. “We are the victim of a very greedy entity,” Drescher said of SAG-AFTRA. “I can’t believe it, quite frankly: how far we are from so many things. How [the studios] Poverty advocates, that they are losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs. it’s disgusting. Shame on them.”

Additional reporting by Elisabeth Wagmeister.