Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy speaks out in support of striking writers and actors

Hollywood has been going through a reckoning this year; as of today, both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA — that’s the screenwriters guild and the actors guild — are on strike. Both groups believe they’re battling for the continued existence of their careers in the face of a changing industry; they want better pay, increased job security, and regulations to prevent studios from abusing AI technology.

This is the first time both guilds have been on strike since 1960, when SAG was run by an actor named Ronald Reagan.

Productions have already been shut down en masse thanks to the writers strike, and with the actors joining them, more are shuttering. Writers and actors are also not allowed to promote their projects. This puts some in tricky positions, especially surrounding big events like the Emmys. Actors and writers who might otherwise want to gush about their work may not be able to.

There’s only one way out…of a strike!

But there are ways around this. For example, Star Wars: Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy is using the press around the show’s nominations — including for Outstanding Drama Series, in addition to seven other awards — to talk about the strikes. Gilroy told IndieWire it was “very, very pleasing,” to see Andor receive the recognition, he made a point to keep the interview focused on labor issues.

Gilroy hasn’t been on the set of Andor since when the WGA writers strike was called back in May, and confirmed that even with the Emmy nominations on the table, he still hadn’t really been in touch with the cast or most people working on the series. “I’m really exiled from the show right now. So I keep my communications to zero; a couple of texts between producers and whatever, congratulations, but I’m not in contact with the show at the moment.”

Gilroy’s strict adherence to the strike guidelines has also meant that he’s had to pull the plug on several promotional ideas he had in the pipeline, such as sharing all the scripts for season 1 to give fans a deeper look at the lauded series. “We were about to do that, but then when the strike hit we felt that that constituted promotional material and we didn’t want to do that,” Gilroy said. “So I’m very eager to do that when the strike is over. We were literally about to pull the trigger on it and we held back because of the strike.”

Tony Gilroy calls for streaming viewership transparency: “Obscurity of data doesn’t help anyone.”

Despite having to put some of the fun promotional ideas for Andor on hold, Gilroy is behind the striking writers and actors. As he puts it, the WGA and SAG-AFTRA are fighting to “save this industry we love so much.”

"I’m getting used to the fact that I’m not in charge of everything in the world that’s happening. I’m just taking the changes as they come and I’m really hoping that the WGA and SAG can hold firm and and save this industry that we love so much. I hope that the creative community can do what the business community in Hollywood seems to be failing to do, which is to try to preserve something amazing that’s been one of the great industries in American culture.I’m doing this today to say thank you, and I’m hoping this doesn’t come off as a promotional idea. We just really want to say thank you and stress our appreciation to the voters and audience. It’s also a chance to really speak about the strike a little bit and how much we support it even as we’re being impacted by it."

There are plenty of issues that SAG-AFTRA and the studios haven’t been able to agree on. Gilroy called attention to one in particular: how tight-lipped streaming services are about viewership data. Andor was a critical hit that audiences loved, even though it didn’t bring in crazy numbers. Or at least we think it didn’t, because Disney is very reluctant to share that data.

“One of the central issues of this entire labor experience is that I don’t have any idea what the audience is,” Gilroy said. “We don’t know what that is, and I think that the obscurity of data doesn’t help anyone. Really. I think it looks like low-hanging fruit and easy profitability for certain corporations, but in the end it just crushes any kind of free market. It crushes the economics of the business, it means people are being overpaid and underpaid and never properly paid. It means that productions are overloaded with expenses up top because what used to be commonly residuals and royalties now have to be front loaded. I think it’s distorted and warped and is close to ruining this amazing industry. So I wish I knew how many people watched, I wish I knew who they were, and I’m not sure that that’s possible.”

Andor season 1 is currently streaming on Disney+. Season 2 has been in the production in the UK for the past several months; it’s not yet clear whether it will continue shooting through the actors’ strike.

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