Fran Drescher to Hit Picket Lines Outside Netflix, Disney, and More for First Day on Actors’ Strike

SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher is hitting the front lines on Friday, which marks the first day of the actors' strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

Actors' union SAG-AFTRA officially announced its decision to go on strike, after its contract expired on July 12 at 11:59 p.m. PT. And its president is taking a stand with them.

Drescher is set to picket outside Netflix's office in Los Angeles on Friday morning between 9:00-9:40, per Deadline. Also on the picket lines will be Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA's national executive director and chief negotiator, and members of the negotiation committee.

After Netflix, the group will head to Paramount Studios at 10:00 until 10:40 a.m. and Warner Bros. in Burbank, Calif., from 11:10-11:45 a.m. They'll wrap for the morning at Disney from 12:00-12:45 p.m., all times Pacific.

Drescher's pending presence on the picket lines comes after she delivered a fiery speech moments after the strike was announced.

"The gravity of this move is not lost on me or our negotiating committee or our board members who have voted unanimously to proceed with a strike," she said. "It's a very serious thing that impacts thousands, if not millions, of people all across this country and around the world — not only members of this union, but people who work in other industries that service the people that work in this industry." 

Drescher said she went into the discussions "in earnest," thinking the strike was avoidable and that both sides were being fair. Instead, what she found was "disgusting" greed, she said. 

"It came with great sadness that we came to this crossroads, but we had no choice," she continued in part. "We are the victims here. We are being victimized by a very greedy entity. I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us. I cannot believe it, quite frankly, how far apart we are on so many things, how they plead poverty, that they're losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs. It is disgusting. Shame on them."

In May, Drescher joined the picket lines for the Writers Guild of America strike outside Paramount Studios. "They feel like this strike is a strike for everybody in the industry," she said of SAG-AFTRA members at the time.

The SAG-AFTRA strike officially began at midnight Pacific time Friday. Find out more about how this will affect audiences here.