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Stephen Amell Reiterates Actors Strike Criticisms, Will Meet With SAG Leadership-TGN

Summary

  • Stephen Amell clarifies his controversial response to the SAG-AFTRA strike and reiterates that he supports his union but disagrees with striking.

  • Amell emphasizes the importance of negotiation and encourages people to get back to the table and negotiate.

  • Despite receiving support from private actors, Amell acknowledges that his comments should have been addressed privately with SAG leadership and hopes that the controversy leads to a broader discussion.

While Arrow and Heels actor Stephen Amell will be meeting with the SAG-AFTRA leadership, the actor is still critical about the ongoing Hollywood strike. The star who helped the Arrowverse get off the ground has gotten himself involved in a new controversy as Amell spoke against the massive SAG-AFTRA strike that is currently taking place. It didn’t take long before social media and industry figures, especially actors and writers, put Amell under fire.

Earlier on Tuesday, Amell released a statement to clarify his controversial response to the picketing strike, which was received with a mixed reception. However, the former CW star has reiterated his thoughts even more in a new interview with TMZ. Amell explained that while he stands with his union and is going to be speaking with SAG leadership “today,” he has received support from other actors in private that feel similarly to him. In a follow-up clip (via @sagesurge), Amell added that he wishes the comments that got him in trouble to begin with had never gotten public, stating the following:

I understand the strike on an intellectual level – striking is not the only form of negotiating. If there is a positive thing to take away from this – and believe me, Harvey, I’m searching for the positives right now because the past day or so has not been the most fun – if there is a positive here, I would like to think that on some shape or form I can encourage people to get back to the table and negotiate. I think, again, one of the silver linings that come out of this is (that) I’m going to get the opportunity later today to speak with SAG leadership to show them how much I support them and want to stand with them. But just because I agree with…you know, I love my co-workers, I love my wife, and I love my kids very much, that doesn’t mean that I always agree with the choices that they make. But I will never ever leave them in a time of need and I won’t do that to my union.

I’ve gotten an extreme amount of support, a lot of people that reached out, a lot of people that have been quiet, but I woke up this morning to 60+ text messages from people. I’m not going to say who they are and they support the union too, they really do. But we live in a time right now – and I don’t want to wax too poetic here – where people want you to vote as long as you’re their candidate.

I think that this has been done in a very black-and-white all-or-nothing sort of way and I’m talking about shows and movies that were about to come out before the strike and I’m speaking specifically about shows that I and a bunch of other people pour their heart and soul into that happen to be coming within a certain window after the strike and I don’t think some of the consideration that was given to other projects leading up to the strike – and the delay of the strike – was given to some of the projects that came on the other side. That’s something that, retrospectively, I should have done a better job of taking up in private with the leadership of my union, people that I greatly respect and admire and look forward to talking to.

I’m going to take a little bit of a quiet moment and try to unplug a little bit, but I’ll tell you what: I’ll do anything within my power, and if that is being the first one to cross the line a little bit – no pun intended – if that’s going to help this process, that I am more than happy to take those slings and arrows. I don’t consider myself to be a martyr, and quite frankly, I would have preferred that these comments never became public, but they did and here we are. Hopefully, it can just lead to a broader discussion and we can get people back to work.

RELATED: Why Some Actors Are Still Working During The SAG-AFTRA Strike

Stephen Amell’s SAG-AFTRA Controversy Explained

The controversy began on July 31, when a clip surfaced from Galaxycon where Amell shared his frustrations about the SAG-AFTRA strike, despite supporting his union. According to Amell, he does “not support striking,” as he believes it is a “reductive negotiating tactic.” Within only a few hours, Amell was trending as multiple people protested his criticism. From there, everyone was waiting for Amell to address his problematic statement from the convention.

On August 1, Amell took to Instagram, where he broke down his feelings extensively, acknowledging that “there has been a lot of reaction to the comments I made this weekend about our strike.” In the lengthy post, the former superhero actor stuck to his gut in that, despite standing with his union, he felt “from an intellectual perspective, I understand why we are striking, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t emotionally frustrating on many levels for all involved.” On the same day as he made his public response on social media, TMZ aired their interview, which also saw Amell heavily imply he did not vote in favor of the strike during SAG’s authorization vote.

It remains to be seen what will come out of this situation, and how this will affect Amell’s SAG-AFTRA membership going forward. Whether any of Amell’s explanations today will please his critics is unclear at this point. However, it goes without saying that Amell, in a rapid pace, managed to cause quite the stir as the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes continue.

Source: TMZ & @sagesurge/Twitter