The 49-year-old actor played Kirk Gleason on all seven seasons of 'Gilmore Girls.'
Kirk Gleason was known for the myriad of jobs he held in Stars Hollow, and now Sean Gunn, the actor who played the lovable townsman on the hit show Gilmore Girls, is calling out Netflix for his lack of residual pay.
Sean, the 49-year-old brother of Marvel and DC director James Gunn, shared with The Hollywood Reporter on Friday that he was out on the picket line for the first day of the SAG-AFTRA strike to mainly "protest Netflix."
The streaming service currently streams all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls as well as the 2016 revival, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.
Sean played Kirk in all seven seasons of the show, as well as all four episodes of the revival, both of which star Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel as the beloved mother-daughter duo Lorelai and Rory Gilmore
"I was on a television show called Gilmore Girls for a long time that has brought in massive profits for Netflix," Sean told THR. "It has been one of their most popular shows for a very long time, over a decade. It gets streamed over and over and over again, and I see almost none of the revenue that comes into that."
THR notes that though Netflix streams Gilmore Girls, the residual pay would actually come from Warner Bros. Discovery, the studio that produced and licenses the series to the streamer.
Sean also went viral over the weekend for his comments to the Associated Press about Disney SEO Bob Iger while on the picket line. Pointing out that Iger makes 400 times more than that of his lowest worker, Sean said, "Is it morally OK? Is it ethically OK that you make that much more than your lowest worker? And if so, why is that OK? And if your response is, 'That's just the way business is done now. That's just the way corporations work now,' well, that sucks and that makes you a s***ty person if that's your answer."
On July 14, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), which represent more than 160,000 film and television actors, officially went on strike after they were unable to reach an agreement with major Hollywood studios and streamers by the July 12 deadline. The studios and streamers are being represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). Due to the strike, nearly all productions in Hollywood have been forced to shut down, which have already had an immediate impact in the industry with canceled premieres, axed publicity tours, delayed projects and abandoned sets. They joined the Writers Guild of America (WGA), who had already been on strike for more than 70 days.
For more on what the strikes mean for Hollywood, check out the links below.
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