In the heat of the actors strike that had ground Hollywood to a halt for months, Fran Drescher told the 34 members of SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating committee a story about an aikido student in Japan who gets into a tiff with a drunk on a train. Throughout the strike, it has been Drescher’s practice to often open or pepper meetings with a Buddhist saying or tale, and in this one, the aikido student is bracing for a fight, titillated by the opportunity to use his new martial arts skills, when an old passenger on the train intervenes and settles the drunk down by talking to him gently about sake. The story’s takeaway is clear: There is more than one way to resolve a conflict.
Now, 118 days into the strike, Drescher has certainly tried a few unorthodox methods of her own, from bringing a heart-shaped plushie into the negotiating room to eschewing what she refers to as “male energy” to publicly questioning if Disney CEO Bob Iger, arguably the most powerful person in Hollywood, is “an ignoramus.” That an actress best known for playing a fashion-conscious nanny from Flushing, Queens, is the person leading the 160,000-member actors union at this historic moment of labor unrest is, well, something you just can’t script. What seems clear is that Drescher has been both quirkier and savvier than her studio opposition was expecting.
“I’m sure that people have underestimated her for her entire life,” SAG-AFTRA national executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland says of Drescher. “Fran is incredibly smart, she’s tenacious, she is dedicated. I deeply respect her. And the industry folks, if they didn’t already, have certainly learned to, as well.”
Many in Hollywood expected the actors strike to resolve quickly after the Writers Guild of America closed its deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on Sept. 24, but after resuming Oct. 2, SAG-AFTRA’s negotiations have…
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