The actor Adam Driver has criticised film studios, including Netflix and Amazon, for refusing to meet the demands of striking writers and actors.
Driver, speaking at a press conference at the Venice Film festival, is one of just a handful of A-listers appearing at the event this year.
The American actor’s film Ferrari, directed by Michael Mann, received an exemption from Sag-Aftra – the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists – for being made outside the main studio system.
Union rules prohibit stars from promoting their films until demands over pay, residuals and the increasing threat of AI are met by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers [AMPTP], the trade association representing big studios, including the streamers.
“I’m very happy to be here to support this movie, but also I’m very proud to be here, to be a visual representation of a movie that’s not a part of the AMPTP, and to promote the Sag leadership directive – which is an effective tactic – which is the interim agreement,” Driver told reporters before Ferrari’s premiere.
The effect of such an interim agreement, he said, was twofold. It allowed independent movies with no association to the AMPTP to allow people in the industry to be able to work. “But the other objective is to say, why is it that a smaller distribution company like Neon and STX International can meet the dream demands of what Sag is asking for – this is pre-negotiation, the dream version of Sag’s wishlist – but a big company like Netflix and Amazon can’t?
“And every time people from Sag support a movie that has agreed to these terms, it just makes it more obvious that these people are willing to support the people they collaborate with, and the others are not.”
Driver has worked with Netflix before, on Marriage Story (2019, an Oscar nomination earner for him) and White Noise (2022), which opened the Venice film festival last year.
He said it was a “no-brainer” to use the opportunity to attend the event and stand in solidarity with his union “by showing up and just further proving the point that it really is about the people that you make [films] with”.
Mann – known for highly stylised and glossy thrillers, such as Heat, and Collateral, as well as the TV series and film versions of Miami Vice – also said “individually and collectively” the team behind the film all stood in solidarity with Sag and the Writers Guild of America.
“This picture got made because of the people who worked on Ferrari forgoing large percentages of salaries, in the case of Adam and myself. Producers such as PJ [van Sangwijk] basically worked for no fees. It’s not made by a big studio, no big studio wrote us a cheque,” he said.
The film depicts the life of Enzo Ferrari during a turbulent period of his life in 1957. Behind the spectacle of Formula One, the former racer faces bankruptcy, the end of his volatile marriage, continuing grief over the death of his son, as well as navigating a relationship with his lover and their young child. His drivers’ passion to win pushes them to the edge as they start the treacherous 1,000-mile race across Italy, the Mille Miglia. The film co-stars Penélope Cruz, Patrick Dempsey and Shailene Woodley.
Driver also spoke about the extra responsibility that came with playing characters of different cultures – in both Ferrari and a previous film, House of Gucci, he steps into the shoes of notable Italian figures behind two of Italy’s most iconic brands.
“It is an added responsibility because it’s not your culture. You have to really immerse yourself,” he said. “You have to be in the place and smell the farms, go to the factory, hear the engines. It’s similar to learning a new language.”
That understanding of different cultures was what he loved most about being an actor, he said. “You’re forced to empathise with someone who’s different from you, and who’s made different choices at a different time … It’s a very weird job but it’s what I’m interested in. It connects me to people that I normally would probably never interact with.”
