The WGA on April 17 passed a strike authorization vote with 98 percent approval of its eligible voting membership. As Hollywood inches closer to a work stoppage, Damon Lindelof says this might be the only way to adapt to the times.
“I don’t support a strike,” Lindelof explained to THR at the L.A. premiere of his new Peacock show, Mrs. Davis. “I don’t think that that’s what anybody wants, but we do support a fair deal, and if a strike is what it takes for us to achieve one, then so be it.”
He continued: “The business is basically changing in ways no one even could have imagined five years ago, so we have to keep up with the times. The reason we have a union is that we had to have a work stoppage in order to take care of the people who went on strike 30 years ago on our behalf. The reason I have health care is because somebody in the early 1980s went out on strike.”
Switching gears, THR also asked Lindelof for his take on another hot topic: HBO Max being renamed Max by bosses at Warner Bros. Discovery. As someone who worked successfully for HBO on previous projects like Watchmen and The Leftovers, Lindelof dismissed the buzz as being much ado about nothing. “HBO is still called HBO but the streamer is called Max,” he explained. “To me, it feels like it’s one of those New Coke things that isn’t really going to matter in about two months.”
This story first appeared in the April 26 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
