‘It felt like a historic moment’: the Hollywood strikes one year on

‘When we look back on it five years from now, 10 years from now, we will still believe that it was the right decision to handle it the way we did’ … Sag-Aftra members chant outside Paramount Studios in 2023. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Fans of Pete Davidson who tuned in to watch him host Saturday Night Live were disappointed to find a rerun instead. Viewers of Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel found they too had gone dark. While late-night TV had found ingenious ways to stay on air during a global pandemic, this was different.

It was a year ago this month that screenwriters hit the picket lines. Actors followed suit with a walkout in mid-July, the first time that the two unions had been on strike together since 1960. As Hollywood came to a standstill, studios were forced to the negotiating table on issues including minimum pay, streaming residuals and guardrails against the use of artificial intelligence (AI).