Dispatches from the Picket Lines: Stars Hit Times Square Rally - From Fraser, Chastain, Cranston & Pierce to Slater, Wong, Hennessy, Shannon, Buscemi and more

With enough famous actors to fill an awards show, all on one stage, the union representing them in an "existential battle" against film and TV studios held a star-studded strike rally in the middle of New York's Times Square on Tuesday morning.

An audience of several hundred, including members wielding SAG-AFTRA cards, crammed into a barricaded pedestrian plaza on a wet day where at least one spectator required medical attention. At an event called "Rock the City for a Fair Contract", they heard nearly two hours of speeches from union representatives and high-profile actors, including Bryan Cranston, Christine Baranski, Wendell Pierce, Christian Slater, Stephen Lang, Michelle Hurd, Jill Hennessy and Steve Buscemi.

Behind the speakers on the temporary stage stood several other actors representing generations of film and television works, including Ellen Burstyn, Michael Shannon, Brendan Fraser, Jessica Chastain, Vanessa Williams, B.D. Wong, Chloe Grace Moretz, Lea DeLaria, S. Epatha Merkerson, and Jane curtin.

In sometimes fiery, sometimes personal remarks, speakers called for fairness, dignity and respect for their work from the executives of the companies that make up the striking actors and writers absent from the contract-negotiating partner: the Alliance of Film and Television Producers.

One ​​speaker asked for the reason: "Let us know when you come to your senses," said Joely Fisher. , Secretary-Treasurer of SAG-AFTRA, speaking to the AMPTP.

Speakers are hampered by the fact that their requests are labeled as "unrealistic", to quote D...