The end of the actors strike is the talk of the town, and late night is no exception.
“Thank you for joining us on ‘take yourself back to work day’ here in Hollywood,” Jimmy Kimmel said during his opening monologue. “Where most of the movie and TV business has been at a stop, a standstill, since May.”
He continued: “Writers’ Strike started in May. But at long last, the actor’s strike is finally over. A lot of people were affected. The Hallmark Channel immediately started shooting all 1,200 of its Christmas movies this morning. One member of the negotiating committee said that there were ‘tears of exhilaration and joy’ in the room after the deal was approved, and it only took them a few takes. It was very realistic.”
Jokes aside, Kimmel concluded: “Finally, actors can get back to their real jobs…which is…playing people with real jobs.”
SAG-AFTRA and the studios finally reached a tentative deal on Wednesday, reinvigorating Hollywood after a historically long work stoppage. Judd Apatow and Sarah Silverman got to talking about the 118-day effort during Thursday’s episode of The Daily Show.
Naturally, Silverman was curious what Apatow had been up to since the writers went on strike in May.
“I was exercising and eating, and then I decided to eat without the exercise,” Apatow, who was on the show to promote his latest film Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain, joked. “I want to get Ozempic, and I want to take it and prove you can gain weight on it.”
He added that also spent much of his time binging shows he hadn’t had a chance to catch up on. “And then I thought to myself, ‘These are all terrible. We don’t deserve a raise.’”
“Listen, you directors took the first thing that was thrown at you. That’s not my problem,” Silverman retorted, taking a dig at the DGA’s quick deal with the AMPTP.
Apatow joked back: “That’s all we deserve.”
Jimmy Fallon also addressed the strike in his own monologue during The Tonight Show, joking that his Friday guest list had changed to “everyone.” His monologue was then interrupted by the stars of Please Don’t Destroy, Ben Marshall, John Higgins and Martin Herlihy — who were on the show a few days ago, but they couldn’t talk about their new film.
After hijacking the monologue to get in more than a few mentions about the film (did you know it’s out November 17 on Peacock?!), Fallon went back to his usual quips.
“When the actors heard a deal had been reached, they gasp screamed, laughed, cried and then were like, ‘I also do accents,’” he said. “Seriously, the actors are back just in time. I’m not sure the world could handle another reality dating show.”
