Hollywood studios have been shut down for two days and 160,000 actors have joined the screenwriters’ strike that began three months ago. The future looks bleak for workers in this sector who now have no income, such as Swiss stuntwoman Petra Sprecher.
Petra Sprecher lives and works in Los Angeles. This Swiss stuntwoman has starred in the greatest American productions alongside the greatest actors such as Will Smith, Tom Cruise or Denzel Washington.
On Saturday, at the RTS Forum event, the stuntwoman spoke about the difficulties associated with the closure of production studios following a walkout by Hollywood screenwriters and actors. “It is very difficult, at the moment everything is closed, (…) I am already unemployed for three months.”
hard to survive
Today, due to the strike and financially paralyzed for the next few months, the Swiss woman has to look for additional income. “I applied for a babysitting job because I was an assistant in Geneva when I was 16, so I have experience working with children,” she says.
I had to apply for a babysitting job because I don’t have much saved
Being able to return to work as soon as possible and short of savings, the Swiss expect the strike to be short. “Yesterday I spoke to a number of friends and the general opinion is that it will obviously last for another five months, probably until Christmas. I don’t want to believe it. Five months of the Hollywood industry being shut down, that’s going to be a lot Bad for the city.”
AI concern
Growth in his profession also creates some concerns for him. With the advent of streaming platforms, contracts have become more complex, “you have to be very careful, (…) they can put millions of characters in them”, says Petra Sprecher.
“Six years ago, during the filming of ‘Independence Day,’ the production put me in a wagon with millions of cameras to film them. They digitized my ears, my eyes, my nose, my fingernails. So, those other can make doubles of mine without paying me. (…) It is a challenge, they will continue to do it more and more often, without paying us and it is not fair”, worries Petra Sprecher. He regrets the contract he signed at the time.
>>See also this 7:30 PM topic on the Hollywood strike:
Interview by Anne Fournier
Web Conversion: Miroslav Mars