Paul Dano Is Ready to Join Zoe Kazan on the WGA Strike Picket Line Post-Cannes
Paul Dano is sharing his support for the WGA strike even while abroad.
The actor, writer, and director revealed during the 2023 Cannes Film Festival press conference that he is ready to join wife and fellow filmmaker Zoe Kazan “on the picket line” after serving on the Cannes jury.
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“My wife is currently picketing with my six-month-old, strapped to her chest,” Dano said. “I will be there on the picket line when I get home.”
The Writers Guild of America strike began May 2 after six weeks of unsuccessful negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, representing the likes of Netflix, Disney, Apple, NBCUniversal, Warner Bros., Paramount, Amazon, and more. Writers are demanding better pay, residuals structures, and protection against AI as a replacement tool for their work, among other concerns. Multiple productions have halted in solidarity with the demonstrations.
Dano wrote and directed indie film “Wildlife” alongside co-writer Kazan, who also penned film “Ruby Sparks.” Both of Kazan’s parents, Nicholas Kazan and Robin Swicord, are also screenwriters, with her grandfather being Hollywood legend Elia Kazan.
Cannes Film Festival jury president Ruben ?stlund similarly addressed the current ban on protests on the Croisette.
“I think it is great that people have a strong collegial feeling so people can go out and have a strike. I am definitely pro,” the writer-director said of the WGA strike. “I support that they are doing it, it is one of the great things with the festival that the world is looking towards you, and you get to say things you want to say.”
The Cannes Festival has also been met with digital protests over the inclusion of problematic filmmakers such as Ma?wenn with her opening night film “Jeanne du Barry” starring Johnny Depp. The Oscar-winning actor won a defamation case against ex-wife Amber Heard in 2022, alleging he lost out on work following her abuse accusations. Fans of Heard have since started the #CannesYouNot social media campaign calling out the festival for “supporting abusers for 76 years.”
French actress Adèle Haenel also slammed the French film industry for protecting “sexual aggressors.”
Cannes festival director Thierry Fremaux stood by the inclusion of “Jeanne du Barry,” saying, “I don’t see Ma?wenn’s film as a controversial choice at all, because if Johnny Depp had been banned from working it would have been different, but that’s not the case. We only know one thing, it’s the justice system and I think he won the legal case. But the movie isn’t about Johnny Depp.”
Reporting by Eric Kohn.
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