The Hollywood labor landscape will have different contours this year as above-the-line guilds try to reach deals with the studios and streamers and avoid a repeat of the damaging strikes of 2023. For one thing, SAG-AFTRA will be the first union to negotiate, taking the spot normally occupied by the Directors Guild.
SAG-AFTRA President Sean Astin and Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the union’s national executive director and chief negotiator, have confidence that their early start (talks kick off February 9) will be a difference-maker. The current contract won’t expire until June 30.
“Part of the reason we wanted to go first is that we wanted to be able to have the time we feel is necessary,” Astin told Deadline in an interview during CES in Las Vegas. “We appreciate that [AMPTP members] are willing to engage early in order to properly examine each item.”
Referencing internal data monitored by SAG-AFTRA officials, he added, “We perceive the beginning of a recovery happening in the industry, and we were very mindful of wanting to protect that, and starting early and going first, I think, gives everyone a little bit of comfort that whatever issues we have to work, that we can do it in a way that will not impede that.”
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Crabtree-Ireland echoed the sentiment. “We’re going in early as a responsible way to help the industry move forward,” he said. “It’s correctly viewed as a signal of strength.”
At a CES panel on Thursday, Crabtree-Ireland called a strike “a possibility” if the union does not see a path to a suitable deal, but during the interview with Astin (and in most of the panel discussion) he struck a more optimistic tone.
Preliminary Agreement?
The execs were asked about Deadline’s recent exclusive report that the AMPTP has put out feelers about the above-the-line unions agreeing to a contract term longer than three years in exchange for AMPTP making payments to their health plans.
“As far as exchanging proposals with the other side, we will do that shortly before the start of the bargaining,” Crabtree-Ireland said. “We have received no proposals from them. I would never be interested in entertaining a hypothetical proposal that’s being floated. Who knows if that is going to actually ever materialize as a proposal?”
Astin said the article laid out a scenario that “might seek to frame public perception about the lead up to the negotiation and create a narrative that has absolutely no relationship with the way we’re gonna go into the bargaining process.” He continued, “We have a fiduciary and moral responsibility to each one of our categorical groups and constituencies to make sure that their issues are fully represented in negotiation, and that they don’t get truncated. We’ve established that there are certain priorities out there.”
Tech And Tilly
For the past several years, SAG-AFTRA helped put on an event during CES called the Labor, Innovation and Technology Summit. That program has been postponed until March and shifted to Washington, D.C. Even so, Astin and Crabtree-Ireland said they hoped to get a glimpse of the CES show floor, which teemed with robots, drones and other gadgets.
Technology, the execs acknowledge, will be center stage in the talks with studios and streamers given the leap forward in AI in the three years since the last round of negotiations. One major development in the latter part of 2025 was the arrival on the scene of Tilly Norwood, a generative AI actress developed by Dutch actress and technologist Eline Van Der Velden. Introduced last fall, Norwood drew fierce backlash (and a sternly worded statement by SAG-AFTRA) and led to speculation about synthetic performers potentially being repped by flesh-and-blood agents and cast by studios in place of human actors.
The furor over Tilly “is not a surprise to us,” Crabtree-Ireland said. “In fact, we took this issue up in 2023. We bargained over synthetic performance creation. One of the things we achieved in that contract that exists now is the requirement to proactively notify us if a signatory creates any synthetic performance that’s used in anything they release. And to date, we have received zero notices that any company has done that. Every time we’re approaching any of our negotiations, we’re looking at how AI is rolling out, how it’s developing. Clearly, the technical capabilities of three years ago have evolved significantly.”
Sora 2 was another storm in 2025, with its chaotic debut sparking industry anxiety about rampant copyright violations. The rollout culminated in a deal between Disney and OpenAI that will see select Disney characters licensed to the AI video platform and the media company paying $1 billion for an equity stake in the AI firm.
Asked whether the idea of an established Hollywood player making a deal with an AI insurgent is a) disconcerting, b) encouraging or c) something that requires further study, Crabtree-Ireland replied that it was all of the above. “We have not yet seen the full agreement” between the companies, he said. “We were contacted by both OpenAI and Disney prior to the public announcement, and we were told about the terms of the agreement and given certain assurances by top execs of those companies about what the agreement includes. On the encouraging side, it’s clear that they have been listening to what we’ve been saying to them.”
As far as SAG-AFTRA has been told, Crabtree-Ireland emphasized, the deal “explicitly excludes any licensing of any performer images or voices. One concern I have, and I expect Sean shares, is precisely why Disney would want to do it. Making a deal like that before the IP litigation, copyright litigation is resolved, could be smart. But it’s essential that we continue to create separation between AI, as an algorithmic tool, and humanity.”
New Guard
The changing of the guard at the AMPTP, which is seeing Greg Hessinger take the baton from longtime chief Carol Lombardini, appears to be an auspicious development ahead of the talks, Crabtree-Ireland said.
“I do think there’ll be a different vibe in this new configuration,” he said. “I’ve known Greg for more than 20 years. I worked with Greg when he was the executive director of AFTRA and then the executive director of SAG.” Hessinger, who took the helm as president after Lombardini stepped down in 2024, is “very focused on helping smooth the process to reach a deal,” Crabtree-Ireland added. “And I believe he has the confidence of the companies that he represents. And rightly so, because he’s an excellent negotiator. He is going to be a very tough negotiator, but he is someone who knows how to make a deal. And if the companies are committed to making a deal, which I hope they are, he is somebody who can help make that happen.”
Astin acknowledged that Hollywood is on edge as 2026 begins, given the grueling experience of 2023. But he feels a sequel isn’t inevitable. “I’ve been saying to a lot of our folks that negotiations aren’t meant to be dramatic. Just the opposite,” he said. “This is the regular course of business. This is how we keep stability in the marketplace – by honoring these contract cycles and by the way we approach doing it.”
Crabtree-Ireland said he is “confident that this negotiation will be successful, but we’re not going to accept any deal that isn’t fair to our members, period. Both Sean and I have very high expectations for these negotiations. We achieved a lot in 2023, and we have a lot that we didn’t get done in 2023 that we expect to get done now.”