'Gilmore Girls' star Sean Gunn joins SAG-AFTRA strike

Gilmore Girls actor Sean Gunn has expressed his support for the acting community by joining the picket lines of the SAG-AFTRA strike. 

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the 49-year-old actor, known for his role as Kirk on the hit series, voiced his frustration with the meager residuals earned by actors from streaming platforms. Gunn specifically highlighted his desire to protest against Netflix.

Although Gilmore Girls initially aired on The WB (later The CW) from 2000 to 2007, it later became available for streaming on Netflix. In 2016, a revival miniseries titled Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life was released as a Netflix original.

Gunn emphasized the immense profits that Gilmore Girls has generated for Netflix, stating, "I was on a television show called Gilmore Girls for a long time that has brought in massive profits for Netflix. 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."

The actor also criticized the co-CEOs of Netflix, Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters, alleging that they receive substantial bonuses in the tens of millions of dollars. Gunn called upon them to share the wealth with the creators of the show's content.

Gunn argued, “I don't understand why they can't lessen those bonuses to share the wealth more with the people who have created the content that has gotten them rich. It really is a travesty. And if the answer is, 'Well, this is just how business is done, this is just how corporate business works,' that sucks. That makes you a bad person.”

He further urged Netflix to reevaluate its business practices and ensure fair compensation for content creators. Gunn warned that failure to do so would have detrimental consequences for the industry.

However, it should be noted that Gunn's claim that Netflix is directly responsible for his lack of "revenue" is inaccurate. He likely meant to refer to "residuals," which are actually derived from Warner Bros. Discovery, the studio that produced and licensed Gilmore Girls to Netflix.