Flannery at last night’s party.Photo: Getty Images
Kate Flannery of ‘The Office’ Is Worried That at SAG, the Inmates Are Running the Asylum
Nobody wants an actors’ strike, right? As this week’s tepid, meager TV upfronts are proving — ABC only has two new shows next fall, one of them a reality game show! — Hollywood will be reeling from the 100-day writers’ strike for years to come. Web royalties are great and all, but so are the paychecks from TV and film gigs. If SAG starts picketing on July 1, don’t blame George Clooney and Ellen Pompeo — blame the wannabes cleaning their pools and dishing out eggs Benedict at the Ivy. So say many message-board posters in Hollywood, anyway, and The Office’s Kate Flannery seems to agree. “I really hope we don’t strike again,†said gainfully employed actress Flannery. At last night’s epic Entertainment Weekly upfronts party at the Bowery Hotel, she said she’s “hearing things†about a strike going down. “I know none of us want to. I know we have to stand up for our rights, [but] I don’t want the inmates to run the asylum.†The inmates? “Sometimes I feel like the actors who don’t work on a regular basis … don’t have the same perspective. I wish them the best, but it makes things very weird sometimes.†Flannery and the Office crew already lost nine episodes, a solid sense of continuity, and considerable income because of the writers’ strike. “It’s easy for people to strike if they’re not working on a regular basis,†she said. “They already have a restaurant job, they already have another life. That’s just the case of our union. Most people in it don’t work regularly.†—Justin Ravitz