SAG strike talk has actors nervous

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-sagstrike12-2008dec12,0,6796330.story

As the economy reels, many top performers show little appetite for another clash with the studios.
By Scott Collins
December 12, 2008

When Hollywood writers began a strike a little more than a year ago, movie and TV stars went out of their way to show solidarity with the mostly unheralded scribes who craft their lines. Former "Seinfeld" star Julia Louis-Dreyfus lugged a picket sign. Jay Leno passed out doughnuts to writers outside studio gates. Dozens of actors shot brief but stylish black-and-white Internet films supporting the scriptwriters.

Now the Screen Actors Guild is pondering its own walkout, possibly as early as next month. But the deepening recession has dampened the militant pro-labor sentiments many celebrities freely espoused last year. With the entertainment business and its tens of thousands of workers still reeling from the three-month writers strike -- and with the larger U.S. economy shedding more than half a million jobs last month alone -- many top performers show little enthusiasm for another smackdown with the studios.

The chill was palpable as Hollywood celebrated the Golden Globe nominations Thursday, setting up the Oscar race for such contenders as "Revolutionary Road" and "Frost/Nixon." Earlier this year, with stars bailing on the ceremony in the depths of the writers strike, NBC offered a truncated, little-watched Globes telecast.