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Steven Spielberg and wife Kate Capshaw have donated $1.5 Million in support of striking writers and actors, and others affected by the work stoppages, Deadline has learned.
The funds, dispersed since the WGA went on strike in May, have been split between the and the SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s Emergency Financial Assistance Program. Both have sought to keep entertainment industry workers afloat amidst the strikes by way of emergency financial assistance to cover basic living expenses, mental heath support and more.
The Entertainment Community Fund had distributed more than $6.5M to over 3,100 film and television workers, as of September 8. The SAG-AFTRA Foundation, meanwhile, has thus far doled out $2.5M in financial assistance.
Spielberg and Capshaw are just the latest to make major donations to the Entertainment Community Fund, on the heels of A-list creatives like Seth MacFarlane. Among others notables who have written sizable checks to the SAG-AFTRA Foundation are George and Amal Clooney, Luciana and Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Hugh Jackman and Deborra-lee Furness, Dwayne Johnson, Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, Julia Roberts, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Meryl Streep and Oprah Winfrey, to name just a few.
The Writers Guild is currently on Day 133 of its strike, and the actors have today hit Day 60. While SAG-AFTRA has not as of yet reconvened with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to come to terms on its new contract, the WGA most recently met with the AMPTP in an official capacity on August 22. The writers guild told members in a September 8 missive that execs from several AMPTP companies had expressed a “desire and willingness” to negotiate a deal to end the strike — albeit, in private — though a spokesperson for the AMPTP later rejected the claim out of hand.
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