union

The WNBA and its players union will not agree to another extension of the collective bargaining agreement after the deadline passes Friday night, WNBPA vice president Breanna Stewart said.

That does not mean players will strike or the league will lock them out. Stewart told reporters Thursday at a practice for the Unrivaled three-on-three league that players would continue to negotiate in good faith.

With the deadline just before midnight Friday, the league wouldn’t confirm that the sides won’t reach an extension. A spokesman did say the league would “continue to negotiate in good faith with the goal of reaching a deal as quickly as possible.”

“Our focus remains on reaching an agreement that significantly increases player compensation while ensuring the long-term growth of the business,” a spokesperson said.

The league and the players had two previous extensions and met several times this week. Any stalled negotiations could delay the start of the season. The last CBA was announced in the middle of January 2020, a month after it had been agreed to.

It easily could take two months from when a new CBA is reached to get to the start of free agency, which was supposed to begin this month.

While a strike or lockout isn’t imminent, both sides could change their viewpoints.

Stewart said calling a strike is “not something that we’re going to do right this second, but we have that in our back pocket.” The league hasn’t been considering a lockout, according to a person familiar with the decision. The person spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the negotiations.

As of Thursday, the sides remained far apart on many key issues, including salary and revenue sharing, and it seems unlikely a deal could be reached before Friday’s deadline.

Revenue sharing a sticking point in talks

The league’s most recent offer last month would guarantee a maximum base salary of $1 million that could reach $1.3 million through revenue sharing. That’s up from the current $249,000 and could grow to nearly $2 million over the life of the agreement, a person with knowledge of the negotiations told AP. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the negotiations.

Under the proposal, players would receive in excess of 70% of net revenue — though that would be their take of the profits after expenses are paid. Those expenses would include upgraded facilities, charter flights, five-star hotels, medical services, security and arenas.

The average salary this year would be more than $530,000, up from its current $120,000, and grow to more than $770,000 over the life of the agreement. The minimum salary would grow from its current $67,000 to approximately $250,000 in the first year, the person told the AP.

The proposal also would pay young stars like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers, who are all still on their rookie contracts, nearly double the league minimum.

The union’s counter proposal to the league would give players around 30% of the gross revenue. The players’ percentage would be from money generated before expenses for the first year and teams would have a $10.5-million salary cap to sign players. Under the union’s proposal, the revenue sharing percent would go up slightly each year.

Union wants expansion fees included; league saying no

The union feels that the $750 million in expansion fees that the league just received with the addition of franchises in Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia by 2030 should be considered revenue and included in projections. The league says that the money actually goes to all the current teams to make up for the future money they’ll be losing by dividing the total revenue by more franchises.

Other major sports leagues like the NBA, NHL and NFL don’t include expansion fees in their revenue-sharing structures. Major League Baseball’s salary structure is not tied to its revenue, so expansion fees don’t matter.

League wants players to pay for own housing

With the potential new minimum salary at approximately $250,000, the WNBA has said that like most every other pro league, players should pay for their own housing.
The union’s stance is that teams should continue to pay for players’ housing.

Why stalled negotiations could delay the season

An extended delay in getting a deal done could cause a number of problems, specifically getting the season started on time or even played for several reasons. There are several factors that indicate that time is near:

• Free agency: With nearly all the veterans free agents this offseason, this will be the biggest year in the league’s history as far as potential movement. Free agency was supposed to start this month. However, once a new CBA is reached, it could take both parties two months to get free agency started.
• Revenue-generating events could be delayed: The release of the schedule has been delayed. In the past the league tried to get it out before the holidays so teams could sell tickets. With so many players potentially changing teams as free agents, new merchandise wouldn’t be able to be sold.
• Expansion draft: With Portland and Toronto entering the league this year, an expansion draft has to be held. Last year when Golden State came into the WNBA, a draft was held in December. Teams need to figure out who they will be protecting from being selected in the draft, and that is made more complicated because of all the free agents.

Scotland’s resident doctors have called off a planned four-day strike over pay.

They had been set to go on the first national walkout staged by NHS workers on Tuesday, having accused ministers of going back on promises over pay.

But after further negotiations, the British Medical Association union is to suspend the strike and put a fresh pay offer to members – and is recommending that it is accepted.

Health secretary Neil Gray said it was “great news” which would avoid disruption to patient care.

Resident doctors – who used to be called junior doctors – make up about 42% of all Scotland’s doctors and range from newly qualified doctors to those with 10 years or more experience.

Members will now consider an offer of a 4.25% pay rise in 2025-26, followed by a 3.75% increase in 2026-27.

The pay deal offered by the Scottish government matches one already accepted by nurses and other healthcare staff, and was previously rejected by the BMA last year.

However it now comes alongside a separate package of contractual reform.

Gray said the deal had been struck following “days of intensive and constructive talks” between the government and the union.

He added that total investment in the offer – covering both pay and contract reform over the two-year period – will be £133m.

Dr Chris Smith, who chairs BMA Scotland’s resident doctors committee, said just before Christmas that discussions between the union and the government had been “useful” and welcomed a “constructive approach”.

Scotland has been the only part of the UK to have avoided strike action by NHS workers.

A previous proposed strike in Scotland in the summer of 2023 was called off at the last minute after a deal was agreed.

A broadcast TV show about a middle-aged guy who becomes an LAPD cop wouldn’t seem like your typical teen magnet.

Yet, the “The Rookie” was the most-streamed show among young people under 18 across all broadcast series in the 2024-2025 broadcast TV season, according to Nielsen data.

Odd as that may seem, the numbers match showrunner Alexi Hawley’s own experience. He says he is often approached by parents telling him how much their kids gravitate to the ABC police procedural.

Recently, he said, actor Dwayne Johnson visited the Los Angeles set with his preteen daughter, who loves the Nathan Fillion-led series, now in its eighth season.

“You’re always surprised in this business at success,” Hawley said in an interview.

He offers multiple explanations: “A lot of it has to do with the comfort food of the show. Bad things happen on our show a lot, but I think the mix of humor and action and heavy stuff resonates with people.”

Part of it, too, he says, is that the show is very “clippable.”

“The Rookie,” which is produced by Lionsgate Television and 20th Television and shot in Los Angeles, has 2.8 million followers on TikTok. In the last 12 months, its biggest audience on the platform were people aged 18 to 24, according to TikTok Studio.

At a time when the broadcast TV business faces steep challenges — including continued cord-cutting and declining ad dollars — the ability of “The Rookie” to captivate young viewers is noteworthy. And its stars’ embrace of social media, particularly TikTok, might have lessons for other broadcast shows looking to draw new and younger eyeballs in the streaming era.

Eric Winter, who plays the serious Sgt. Tim Bradford on “The Rookie,” is especially active on the platform, despite some initial resistance.

“I was anti-TikTok,” he said. “I was like, ‘I’m never doing it. I’m never gonna have an account. I won’t be seen doing a post or a dance, acting like a fool.’ And my wife was like, ‘You’re launching a premium rum brand. You’ve got to be out there. You’ve got to be public with it.’”

And he’s seen teen fandom up close — at publicity events kids will line up to get his autograph.

After launching his TikTik about two years ago, Winter now has about 6.6 million followers, and he’ll post pranks with his co-stars from the set or group TikToks.

Even Fillion has gotten in on the action and has asked Winter for advice. Many other cast members are active on the platform as well.

“We’re all trying to outdo each other with TikTok, and it’s grown into its own little beast that drives the eyeballs,” Winter said. “I just started doing a lot of goofy ones that worked.”

Beyond jokes from the set, clips from the show itself have driven people to the series who may not have otherwise found it. Scenes involving the will-they-won’t-they romance between Winter’s character Bradford and co-star Melissa O’Neil’s Sgt. Lucy Chen (collectively known to fans as “Chenford”) also drive major views, as do shorts with Fillion.

“We have these funny moments, and these little stories that we can do because we’re a patrol show where anything can happen anytime they get out of their car,” Hawley said. “And I think those translate really well to 30-second, one-minute clips that just bring people to want to watch more.”

It’s kind of like movie trailers for the new generation. While young viewers can’t watch an entire show via social media, the shorter clips are clearly one way of introducing them to the series — and getting them hooked. Collaborations with YouTube stars also help.

Last season, YouTube personalities Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej guest starred in an episode of “The Rookie” in which the pair investigates a haunted psychiatric facility. Hawley learned of Bergara and Madej’s “Ghost Files” paranormal show through his kids.

This year, he’s planning a similar crossover with comedy streamer Dropout.TV.

“Rather than doing crossovers with traditional shows, like other ABC shows, given our growing young fan base, I’m like, ‘Well, what can I pull into our show that younger people relate to more,’” Hawley said.

The predictable format offers something else: a reprieve from the chaos of the world, similar to older network shows like “Golden Girls” and “Modern Family” that are also popular with younger audiences.

“The world is hard right now,” Hawley said. “It’s very stressful. There’s something that’s just comforting about putting us on and the number of episodes we have. Our show is an escape for people.”

Stuff we wrote

Film shoots

Number of the week

Disney-owned 20th Century Studios’ “Avatar: Fire and Ash” cracked the $1-billion mark at the global box office on Sunday. The film is the third Disney film released in 2025 that has crossed $1 billion worldwide, following the animated “Zootopia 2” and the live-action adaptation of “Lilo & Stitch.”

Topping it off, “Avatar: Fire and Ash” is the third of three “Avatar” films to reach $1 billion globally. The James Cameron-directed franchise has now grossed more than $6.35 billion so far.

Finally …

My colleague, Andrew J. Campa, has a fascinating story about how thieves are hacking off the leaves of agave plants — and the theories about why it’s happening.

Novak Djokovic says he has “stepped away completely” from the Professional Tennis Players Association that he co-founded, citing concerns about “transparency and governance”.

Serbian Djokovic, 38, and Canadian tennis player Vasek Pospisil founded the breakaway player union in 2021.

In March 2025, the PTPA launched legal action against tennis’ governing bodies – including the ATP and WTA tours – over what it claimed are “anti-competitive practices and a blatant disregard for player welfare”.

The ATP and WTA both strongly rejected the accusations and said they would defend their position.

Djokovic, who has won 24 Grand Slam titles, said at the time that he did not agree with the entirety of the PTPA’s case and has now ended his association with the organisation.

“After careful consideration, I have decided to step away completely from the Professional Tennis Players Association,” Djokovic posted on X., external

“This decision comes after ongoing concerns regarding transparency, governance, and the way my voice and image have been represented.

“I am proud of the vision that Vasek and I shared when founding the PTPA, giving players a stronger, independent voice – but it has become clear that my values and approach are no longer aligned with the current direction of the organisation.

“I will continue to focus on my tennis, my family, and contributing to the sport in ways that reflect my principles and integrity. I wish the players and those involved the best as they move forward, but for me, this chapter is now closed.”

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Dick Cheney predicted Thursday that the Soviet Union will withdraw all of its troops from Europe by 1995, a forecast that prompted key Senate Democrats to question whether President Bush’s new proposal for cutting U.S. forces should be faster and deeper.

As the Senate Armed Services Committee opened congressional debate on reshaping the nation’s military structure, Cheney and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Colin L. Powell, were repeatedly challenged on the Administration’s troop-reduction plans.

195,000 Force Level

Cheney, disclosing the Pentagon’s rough timetable for cuts in Europe, testified that it may take a year or two to carry out any U.S.-Soviet agreement on the issue.

Bush announced Wednesday night that he was recommending that each side cut its combat forces in Central Europe to 195,000, with the United States allowed to have an additional 30,000 elsewhere in Europe. Currently, the United States has 305,000 troops on the continent.

Sen. Alan J. Dixon (D-Ill.), sharply criticizing the pace of negotiations, declared that he would push the subcommittee he heads to legislate an immediate reduction of 50,000 American troops in Europe and 10,000 in Korea.

Dixon said events are overtaking negotiations, with NATO allies West Germany and Belgium already planning their own deep cuts and Soviet forces certain to be kicked out by new governments in Eastern Europe.

“I’m not saying we should strip until we’re naked,” Dixon said. “There are reasonable, moderate, fair reductions we can make.”

Later, Committee Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) applauded Bush for going beyond his proposal of last May and advocating the withdrawal of 80,000 U.S. troops, not just the 30,000 he called for then. He called it “much more relevant to the changes in Europe and to the budget realities here at home.”

But Nunn voiced strong concern when Cheney seemed to advocate keeping 225,000 U.S. troops in Europe indefinitely, despite his prediction that the Soviets would pull all of its forces out of Eastern Europe and the two Germanys would be reunited.

Nunn warned that unless the United States had plans to make substantial withdrawals in such a case, it could wind up supplying most of the ground forces for NATO as other allies disbanded their units.

The influential senator got Cheney to concede that the Administration would “take another look” at U.S. troop levels in the event of a sweeping Soviet pullback and German reunification.

Despite Cheney’s expression of flexibility, the defense secretary firmly defended Bush’s new plan. He asserted that any effort by Congress to make unilateral troop cuts before the conclusion of U.S.-Soviet arms control talks would undermine the NATO alliance and encourage greater instability in Europe.

“We are on the verge of winning one of the greatest victories in the history of the world without a shot being fired,” Cheney said. “We should not unilaterally bring them (U.S. troops) home before we get an agreement.”

Republicans Cautious

Several Republicans on the committee strongly backed that position.

“We cannot let the euphoria sweeping this nation drive us to unilateral and hasty reductions in these forces,” Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S. C.) said.

Although members of both parties warmly pledged to work cooperatively with Cheney and Powell in the battles ahead, several Democrats served notice that they would press for deep cuts in the Administration’s proposals for increased spending on strategic weapons programs.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) proposed a “Democratic alternative” that he said would carve a $169-billion “peace dividend” out of the defense budget over the next five years, more than quadrupling the savings proposed by Bush for the same period.

Kennedy singled out the B-2 Stealth bomber, the “Star Wars” anti-missile program and other major programs for deep slashes. He argued that Bush’s budget fails to reflect a dramatically diminished Soviet military threat and a massive upgrading of U.S. strategic weapons in the last decade.

“We have to have a modernization program,” he said, “but does it have to be at the madcap pace of the 1980s?”

Cheney, while acknowledging major changes in the world, said that the Soviets continue to modernize their own strategic arsenal. “The Soviet Union remains the only nation on earth capable of destroying the United States,” he said.

Powell likewise contended that this was no time for the nation to let down its guard.

“I never want to return to that leisurely, comfortable ‘From Here to Eternity’ attitude of the 1930s that helped invite global conflict to an unsuspecting world,” he said.

“South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who this summer landed one of the richest TV deals ever, are being called Scrooges by performers at their Casa Bonita restaurant near Denver.

In late October, the performers, including the famed cliff divers, went on a three-day strike, citing unsafe working conditions and stalled negotiations over their first contract. The performers voted unanimously to unionize with Actors’ Equity Assn. a year ago.

The strike ended when the restaurant’s management agreed to bring in a mediator to assist in the negotiations.

But the standoff has continued, prompting Actors’ Equity to take out an ad in the Denver Post this week that depicts a “South Park” cartoon-like Parker and Stone awash in hundred-dollar bills while their staff, including a gorilla and a person clad in a swimsuit, shivers outside in the Colorado cold.

The union said its goal is to prod the star producers to resolve the labor tensions by giving about 60 Casa Bonita performers, including magicians and puppeteers, a pay increase and other benefits along with their first contract.

A full page ad is running in the Denver Post on Dec 24.

(Actors’ Equity Association)

Other Casa Bonita workers voted earlier this month to join the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 7.

“At Casa Bonita, we value all of our team members and their well being,” the restaurant management said in a statement. “We are negotiating in good faith with our unionized team members in the hopes of concluding fair collective bargaining agreements.”

Parker and Stone declined to comment through a spokesperson.

The pair, who also created the hit Broadway play “The Book of Mormon,” rescued the kitschy, bright-pink Mexican-themed eatery in Lakewood, Colo., from bankruptcy in 2021 and have since plowed more than $40 million into the restaurant to upgrade and correct unsafe electrical, plumbing and structural issues after the facility had fallen into disrepair.

For “South Park” super-fans, the venue has become something of a mecca since first being featured in the seventh season of the long-running Comedy Central cartoon.

In that episode, Cartman flips out when Kyle invites Stan, Kenny and Butters Stotch to his birthday party at Casa Bonita (not Cartman), where they are serenaded by the restaurant’s ubiquitous mariachi bands.

Along with legions of other kids who grew up in Colorado, Parker and Stone fondly remember making the trek to the Casa Bonita of their 1980s youth. Restoring the restaurant has become a passion project for the writers, a journey that became grist for a documentary, “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!,” which streams on Paramount+.

In July, Paramount managers were eager to tie up loose ends to facilitate the company’s sale to David Ellison’s Skydance Media and RedBird Capital Partners. The incoming management team also became involved in the protracted negotiations to strike a new deal with Parker and Stone’s production company, Park County, to avoid having the situation unravel, possibly tripping up their corporate takeover.

Paramount ultimately agreed to extend the overall deal for Park County as well as lock up the show’s exclusive global streaming rights for $300 million a year over five years. Until this year, the show streamed exclusively on HBO Max.

The overall deal is slated to bring Parker and Stone’s firm $1.25 billion through 2030.

As part of the pact, the team agreed to create 50 new “South Park” episodes for Paramount. The series has enjoyed a ratings bounce and increased cultural resonance this year as it routinely roasts President Trump.

Actors’ Equity, which also represents Broadway performers, is seeking pay raises for its members at Casa Bonita. Union representatives said performers’ wages there average $21 to $26 an hour.

“Matt and Trey have become fabulously wealthy by pointing out the hypocrisy of rich and powerful people,” said David Levy, communications director for Actors’ Equity. “And now they are behaving exactly like the people they like to take down.”

The United States has imposed visa bans on five Europeans, including a former European Union commissioner, accusing them of pressuring tech firms to censor and suppress “American viewpoints they oppose”.

In a statement on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio characterised the individuals as “radical activists” who had “advanced censorship crackdowns” by foreign states against “American speakers and American companies”.

“For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose,” he said on X.

“The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship,” he added.

The most prominent target was Thierry Breton, who served as the European commissioner for the internal market from 2019-2024.

Sarah Rogers, the undersecretary for public diplomacy, described the French businessman as the “mastermind” of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), a landmark law intended to combat ​hateful speech, misinformation and disinformation on online platforms.

Rogers also accused Breton of using the DSA to threaten Elon Musk, the owner of X and a close ally of US President Donald Trump, ahead of an interview Musk conducted with Trump during last year’s presidential campaign.

‘Witch hunt’

Breton responded to the visa ban in a post on X, slamming it as a “witch hunt” and comparing the situation with the US’s McCarthy era, when officials were chased out of government for alleged ties to communism.

“To our American friends: Censorship isn’t where you think it is,” he added.

The others named by Rogers are: Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate; Josephine Ballon and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg, leaders of HateAid, a German organisation, and Clare Melford, who runs the Global Disinformation Index (GDI).

French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot “strongly” condemned the visa restrictions, stating that the EU “cannot let the rules governing their digital space be imposed by others upon them”. He stressed that the DSA was “democratically adopted in Europe” and that “it has absolutely no extraterritorial reach and in no way affects the United States”.

Ballon and von Holdenberg of HateAid described the visa bans as an attempt to obstruct the enforcement of European law on US corporations operating in Europe.

“We will not be ‌intimidated by a government that uses accusations of censorship to silence those who stand ⁠up for human rights and freedom of expression,” they said in a statement.

A spokesperson for the GDI also called the US action “immoral, unlawful, and un-American”, as well as “an authoritarian attack on free speech and an egregious act of government censorship”.

The punitive measures follow the Trump administration’s publishing of a National Security Strategy, which accused European leaders of censoring free speech and suppressing opposition to immigration policies that it said risk “civilisational erasure” for the continent.

The DSA in particular has emerged as a flashpoint in US-EU relations, with US conservatives decrying it as a weapon of censorship against right-wing thought in Europe and beyond, an accusation Brussels denies.

The legislation requires major platforms to explain content-moderation decisions, provide transparency for users and grant researchers access to study issues such as children’s exposure to dangerous content.

Tensions escalated further this month after the EU fined Musk’s X for violating DSA rules on transparency in advertising and its methods for ensuring users were verified and actual people.

Washington last week signalled that key European businesses – including Accenture, DHL, Mistral, Siemens and Spotify – could be targeted in response.

The US has also attacked the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act, which imposes similar content moderation requirements on major social media platforms.

The White House last week suspended the implementation of a tech cooperation deal with the UK, saying it was in opposition to the UK’s tech rules.

The year was 1923, and thousands of people a month were flooding into Los Angeles in hopes of finding a job in the nascent film business.

Many planned to start as background actors, dreaming they’d be discovered by a director and finally get their big break. These behind-the-scenes actors would wander from studio lot to studio lot, lining up in hopes of being cast.

But the chaos of aspiring actors searching for jobs eventually became too much. Even silent screen star Mary Pickford took to warning wide-eyed newcomers that they should save enough money to survive for five years before coming out to Hollywood.

Out of calls to create safeguards around this fledgling business, and more order around background acting opportunities, emerged the Central Casting Corp.

Central Casting — now so eponymous that its name has become a cultural phrase — celebrated its 100th anniversary earlier this month.

I recently spoke with Mark Goldstein, president and chief executive of the Burbank-based company, to talk about changes in the industry, including the threat of artificial intelligence, runaway production and the role of a background actor in 2025.

Goldstein acknowledged the tough environment for background performers, also commonly known as extras, who populate restaurants, parks and other film and TV scenes to make the environment seem more realistic — all without saying a word.

After the lows of the pandemic, and then the explosion of content during the peak TV era, one of the main challenges for Central Casting’s members is just finding new roles, he said.

“There’s been a little bit of a pullback in production over the last year,” said Goldstein, who serves as president and CEO of Central Casting as well as production finance and management tools firm Entertainment Partners, which owns the agency. “It’s really just constantly finding the right roles for people.”

In Southern California, of course, jobs have been more scarce as production has flowed to other states and countries offering steeper film incentives.

Then there is the advent of computer-generated imagery, which has lessened the need for massive crowd scenes that were once standard.

“Before [CGI] technology, we may fill up an arena, like we may fill a 5,000-person shoot or a 10,000-person shoot,” Goldstein said.

Remember the long lines for casting calls?

No more.

More recently AI has been a key concern for background actors, though Goldstein said he doesn’t think the new digital tools and the rise of synthetic characters will eliminate the need for background actors.

“There’s a lot of conversation [about] is it human or technology? And we kind of view it as human and technology,” he said. “The consumer wants believability, and so there’ll be situations where it’s really important to have the human role involved, but there may be other situations where AI and technology can be helpful.”

He added: “We have legendary people that started their career because they wanted to follow their dream to become an actor in Hollywood,” he said, ticking off the names of famous alumni such as Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, Eva Longoria, Will Ferrell and Brad Pitt. “And we don’t see that changing.”

Despite the challenges, aspiring actors still register with Central Casting every day, Goldstein said. The company has 200,000 background actors in its database, with more than 20,000 new names added a year. About 3,000 are placed in roles each day, the company says.

One of those is Jaylee Maruk, 38, who signed up with Central Casting in 2009 and has worked steadily ever since.

Maruk works often on “Grey’s Anatomy” and has credits on Hulu’s “Paradise” and Apple TV’s “Shrinking.” She once stood in for Greta Lee in Apple TV‘s “The Morning Show.”

“What I love about doing background is it really gives a solid foundation about what it’s like to be on set and what the expectations are,” Maruk said.

But she worries about her future, especially with the rise of AI and the migration of production.

“Productions will pack up and leave,” she said. “They’ll go somewhere cheaper, and it’s becoming harder and harder for us. That’s really the biggest concern, trying to entice and support productions staying here.”

Towns in far-off countries like Hungary and Turkey can be made to look just like places in America, she says. And they can cast local residents instead of U.S.-based performers like Maruk. After all, background actors don’t have speaking roles, so not speaking English isn’t a problem.

“We want our work to be here,” said the Lake Balboa resident. “Our families are here, our lives are here.”

Last year, I got a glimpse into the world of background acting when I covered the annual Los Angeles Union Background Actors Awards. Though tongue-in-cheek at times — the awards themselves are called Blurries — the ceremony and winners’ speeches also highlighted these actors’ key roles in Hollywood.

I met background actors who had done the job for years, including one who got his first role as a 12-year-old in “Hello, Dolly!” Many talked about the difficulty of the last few years and the desire for respect for their professional work. Some were full-time background actors; others did the work part time. All were passionate about what they did.

“It really is just preparedness and luck, as they say,” Maruk said. “And also just having a lot of motivation and resilience.”

Stuff We Wrote

Film shoots

Number of the week

James Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” brought in $89 million in the U.S. and Canada during its opening weekend. Globally, the film made $346 million, with big hauls in China and France.

That opening total came in at the lower end of box office analysts’ expectations and is also less than the massive opening weekend for its predecessor film, 2022’s “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which grossed $134 million in its domestic debut. But “Avatar” films tend to build momentum at the box office over subsequent weekends, so the Na’vi aren’t vanquished yet.

In addition to “Avatar,” this past weekend also saw strong performances from Angel Studios’ animated “David,” as well as Lionsgate’s thriller “The Housemaid,” pushing the year-to-date domestic box office total a slim 1% above the same time period last year. That’s helpful for theaters but doesn’t bode well for the box office’s overall performance this year.

Finally …

My colleague Josh Rottenberg looks at what movie stardom will mean in an age of AI. In that story, he has an interview with the creator of Tilly Norwood, the AI-generated character that recently sparked a furious debate in Hollywood about the role of synthetics in film and TV.

Kevin Hart is almost impossible to avoid.

The stand-up comic turned actor has spent the past decade as one of Hollywood’s most bankable and visible stars, headlining megahits like the “Jumanji” films alongside a steady output of comedies and animated features, while still selling out arena tours and releasing hit Netflix comedy specials. Off-screen, his face turns up everywhere: pitching banking apps, tequila and energy drinks.

For a long time, that kind of omnipresence carried real security in Hollywood.

In the era of artificial intelligence, though, that guarantee has begun to erode. A quick Google search for “Kevin Hart AI” turns up unofficial versions of his voice, available with a few clicks.

A series on how the AI revolution is reshaping the creative foundations of Hollywood — from storytelling and performance to production, labor and power.

That helps explain why, one evening last month on the Fox lot, the head of Hart’s entertainment company, Hartbeat, was on an industry panel talking not about box office or release strategies but AI. Jeff Clanagan painted a picture of a landscape in which movie stardom is no longer protected by traditional channels, as attention splinters across platforms and audiences fragment. In that environment, AI can be both a risk and a lever.

“The most valuable resource right now is attention,” Clanagan told the audience of 150 studio executives, filmmakers, investors and technologists gathered at Hollywood X, an invitation-only event focused on responsible adoption of AI. “You’re competing for it everywhere — everybody is always on a second screen. That fragmentation is where the disruption is.”

Hollywood was built on the idea that a small number of stars could reliably command attention and turn it into leverage. As AI and algorithm-driven platforms reshape how attention is created and distributed, even the most recognizable names are newly exposed — not only to dilution but to the prospect of being replaced altogether.

Jeff Clanagan, right, president and chief distribution officer of Kevin Hart’s entertainment company, Hartbeat, speaking on a panel at last month’s Hollywood X event.

(Randall Michelson)

In parts of Asia, synthetic performers are no longer hypothetical. In Japan, the anime-style virtual pop star Hatsune Miku has sold out concerts and headlined festivals. In China, AI hosts run shopping streams on the video platform Douyin. And in the U.S., Lil Miquela, a computer-generated influencer created by the Los Angeles startup Brud, has amassed millions of followers and appeared in major fashion campaigns, including a Calvin Klein ad with Bella Hadid.

For studios, brands and producers, the appeal isn’t hard to see. A virtual performer doesn’t call in sick, miss a shoot or carry off-screen baggage. There’s no aging out of roles, no scheduling crunch. They don’t need trailers, negotiate contracts or arrive with riders, entourages and expense accounts in tow.

The old mythology was that a star might be discovered at Schwab’s lunch counter or in an audition room. Hollywood has always chased the “it factor.” What happens when the performer is, quite literally, an it?

That question came into sharp focus this fall with the appearance of Tilly Norwood, a photorealistic, AI-generated character that took the guise of a rising British actor, styled to read mid-20s and approachable — exactly the kind of star Hollywood is always looking for.

It landed in an industry already on edge. Hollywood was still reeling from strikes, layoffs and a prolonged contraction, with anxiety about AI simmering just below the surface. The response was immediate and visceral.

SAG-AFTRA warned that projects like Tilly risked relying on what the union called “stolen performances,” arguing that AI-generated actors draw on the work of real performers without consent or compensation, concerns that were central to the union’s 2023 strike. On a Variety podcast, Emily Blunt was shown an image of Tilly and paused. “No — are you serious? That’s an AI?” she said. “Good Lord, we’re screwed.”

SAG-AFTRA members march in one “Unity Picket” on strike day 111 at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank on Nov. 1, 2023.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Even some of Hollywood’s most tech-forward figures have drawn a line. On the press tour for his latest film, “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” James Cameron — the director who once warned of Skynet in “The Terminator” — called the idea of AI replacing actors “horrifying,” arguing that human performance would become increasingly “sacred.”

Yves Bergquist, an AI researcher who directs the AI in Media Project at the USC Entertainment Technology Center — a think tank supported by major studios and technology companies — expects AI to continue to encroach on territory once reserved solely for humans.

“Will we see AI movie stars?” Bergquist asks. “Probably.” But he draws a line between what the technology can generate and what audiences are willing to invest in emotionally.

“Prince writing his songs is a great story,” he says. “Pushing a button and making music is not. Very soon — it’s already starting — we’re going to have this us-versus-them mentality. These are the machines and we’re the humans. And we’re not the same.”

The actor that didn’t exist

“Are you allowed to speak to me from L.A.?” Eline van der Velden, the creator of Tilly Norwood, asks with a quick, nervous laugh on a video call from London — a nod to how radioactive the subject of synthetic performers has become.

The question isn’t entirely a joke. Three months ago, when Van der Velden presented her latest project at an industry conference in Zurich, it touched off one of Hollywood’s most heated debates yet over AI and performance, one that still hasn’t fully cooled.

Van der Velden, 39, came up as an actor before pivoting into production, eventually landing in London, where she founded Particle6, a digital production company known for short-form video work for broadcasters and major platforms. She was in Zurich to introduce its newest offshoot, Xicoia, an AI studio designed to build and manage original synthetic characters for entertainment, advertising and social media. “It’s not a talent agency — we’re making characters,” she says. “So it’s really like a Marvel universe studio in a way.”

Eline van der Velden, creator of the AI-constructed Tilly Norwood, at Web Summit 2025 in Lisbon, Portugal.

(Florencia Tan Jun/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

Tilly Norwood was meant to be the first and most visible example of that approach. Conceived as a recurring character with an unfolding story arc, Tilly was built to exist across short-form videos and scripted scenarios. As part of the Zurich presentation, Van der Velden screened a short satirical video titled “AI Commissioner,” introducing Tilly as a “100% AI-generated” actor — smiling on a red carpet and breaking down on a talk-show couch.

Other short videos featuring Tilly had already circulated online, including a montage placing her in familiar movie genres and a parody riffing on Sydney Sweeney’s controversial American Eagle jeans ad (“My genes are binary”). The “AI Commissioner” video itself had been posted on YouTube months earlier. By then, photorealistic synthetic characters were no longer novel and similar experiments were spreading online.

In Hollywood, it triggered an immediate backlash. Press accounts out of Zurich, amplified by Van der Velden’s remark that Tilly might soon be signed to an agent, collided with an industry already on edge about AI. Van der Velden was stunned at the intensity of the outcry: “Tilly was meant to be for entertainment,” she says. “It’s not to be taken too seriously. I think people have taken her way too seriously.”

Across the industry, working actors, already facing shrinking opportunities, recoiled at the idea of a fabricated performer potentially taking real jobs. Some called for a boycott of any agents who might take on Norwood. Speaking to The Times, SAG-AFTRA President Sean Astin demanded that the real-life actors used for AI modeling be compensated. “They need to know that it’s happening,” he said. “They need to give permission for it and they need to be bargained with.”

As the coverage ricocheted far beyond the trades and went global, the reaction escalated just as quickly. Asked when she knew Tilly had struck a nerve, Van der Velden answers matter-of-factly: “When I got the death threats. That’s when I was like, oh — this has taken a very different turn.”

Van der Velden understands why the idea of a synthetic performer unsettled people, especially in a business already raw from layoffs, strikes and contraction. “Tilly is showing what we can do with the tech at this moment in time, and that is frightening,” she says. But she argues that much of the backlash rests on fears that, in her view, haven’t yet materialized — at least not in the way people imagine them.

Tilly Norwood, an AI construct created by Particle6.

(Particle6)

“There’s a bad reputation around AI,” she says. “People try to swing all sorts of things at it, like, ‘Oh, it’s taking my job.’ Well, I don’t know of anyone whose acting job has actually been taken by AI. And Tilly certainly hasn’t taken anyone’s job.”

Union representatives argue that displacement is already occurring through subtler mechanisms: background roles increasingly filled by digital doubles, commercials replacing actors with synthetic performers and projects that never get greenlighted because AI offers a cheaper alternative. The impact shows up not in pink slips but in opportunities that vanish before auditions are ever held.

Even as the controversy grew, Van der Velden says she began hearing something else privately. Producers and executives reached out, curious about what Tilly could do, with several asking about placing the character in traditional film or television projects — offers she says she declined. “That’s not what Tilly was made for,” she says.

Van der Velden insists the character was never intended to replace actors, framing Tilly instead as part of a different creative lineage, closer to animation. “I was an actor myself — I absolutely love actors,” she says. “I love pointing a camera at a real actress. Please don’t stop casting actors. That’s not the aim of the game.”

With a background in musical theater and physics, Van der Velden spent her early career in Los Angeles acting, improvising at Upright Citizens Brigade and making YouTube sketches. An alter ego she created, Miss Holland — designed to make fun of rigid beauty standards — won an online comedy award and helped launch her career in the U.K., where she founded Particle6.

Tilly began as an exercise: Could Van der Velden design a virtual character who felt instantly familiar, the kind of approachable young woman audiences would naturally be drawn to? “It’s like building a Barbie doll,” she says, noting at one point she considered making Tilly half robot. “I had fun making her. It was a creative itch.”

She pushes back on the idea that synthetic characters are simply stitched together from parts of real people. “People think you take this actress’ eyes and nose and that actress’ mouth,” she says. “That’s not how it works at all.”

Over six months, a team of about 15 people at Particle6 worked on developing Tilly, generating more than 2,000 visual versions and testing nearly 200 names before selecting Tilly Norwood, one that fit what Van der Velden calls the “English rose” aesthetic they were looking for and wasn’t already taken. “It’s very human-led,” Van der Velden says, likening AI tools to a calculator for creatives. “You need taste. You need judgment. You still have to call the shots.”

Even as the technology advances, the uncanny valley remains a stubborn barrier. Van der Velden says Tilly has improved over the last six months, but only through sustained human steering. “It takes a lot of work to get it right,” she says.

That labor, she says, is what separates an emerging form of storytelling worth taking seriously from AI slop. “I’ve seen some genuinely amazing work coming out of AI filmmaking,” she says. “It’s a different art form but a real one.”

She sees Tilly less as a provocation than as a reflection. “She represents this moment of fear in our industry as a piece of art. But I would say to people: Don’t be fearful. We can’t wish AI away. It’s here. The question is, how do we use it positively?”

Her focus now is on what she calls Tilly’s “inside” — the personality, memory and backstory that give the character continuity over time. That interior life is being built with Particle6’s proprietary system, DeepFame, software designed to give the character memory and behavioral consistency from one appearance to the next.

“People ask me things like what her favorite food is,” Van der Velden says. “I’m not going to answer for Tilly. She has a voice of her own. I’d rather you ask her yourself — very soon.”

Hollywood fights back

While Van der Velden wishes the industry were less afraid of what AI might become, Alexandra Shannon is helping Hollywood arm itself for what’s already here.

As head of strategic development at Creative Artists Agency, one of the industry’s most powerful agencies, Shannon works with actors, filmmakers and estates trying to navigate what generative technology means for their work — and their identities.

The questions she hears tend to fall into two camps. “First is, how do I protect myself — my likeness, my voice, my work?” she says. “And then there’s the flip side: How do I engage with this, but do it safely?”

Those concerns led to the creation of the CAA Vault, a secure repository for approved digital scans of a client’s face and voice. Shannon describes it as a way to capture a likeness once, then allow performers to decide when and where it can be used — for example, in one shot created for one film. It doesn’t eliminate uncertainty, she says, but it gives talent something they’ve rarely had since AI companies entered the picture: control.

“There’s a legitimate way to work with them,” she adds. “Anything outside that isn’t authorized.”

Creative Artists Agency’s headquarters in Century City, where talent representatives are grappling with how to protect clients’ likenesses.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Those risks are no longer abstract. Unauthorized AI-generated images and videos resembling Scarlett Johansson have circulated online. Deepfake ads have falsely enlisted Tom Hanks to promote medical products. AI-generated images have placed Taylor Swift in fabricated scenarios she never endorsed. Once a likeness becomes live and responsive, Shannon says, control can erode quickly.

For all the panic around AI, Shannon rejects the idea that digital likeness will undercut human stars overnight. “It’s not about all of a sudden you can work with Brad Pitt and you can do it for a fraction of the cost,” Shannon says. “That is not where we see the market going.”

What CAA is intent on preserving, she says, isn’t just a face or a voice but the accumulated meaning of a career.

“For an individual artist, their body of work is built over years of creative decisions — what roles to take, what brands or companies to work with, and just as importantly, what roles not to do, what companies not to support,” she adds. “That body of work is a fundamental expression of who they are.”

Shannon doesn’t dispute that the tools are improving or that some AI-native personas will find an audience. But she believes their growth will sharpen, not weaken, what distinguishes human performance in the first place. “In a world where there’s this vast proliferation of AI-generated content, people will continue to crave live, shared, human-centered experiences,” she contends. “I think it’s only going to make those things more valuable.”

Not everyone is convinced the balance will tilt so neatly.

“The genie’s out of the bottle,” Christopher Travers says by phone from Atlanta, where he runs Travers Tech, advising companies and individual creators on generative video and digital-identity strategy. “There are now more than a million characters across all sorts of media, from VTubers to AI-generated performers.”

Travers got his start in generative AI with the backing of Mark Cuban, founding Virtual Humans in 2019, a startup focused on computer-generated performers and digital identities. These days, his journey would have been much easier. “It costs nearly nothing now,” he says. “And when cost drops, volume increases. There’s pressure on celebrities to keep up.”

Having watched countless virtual characters come and go, Travers wasn’t particularly impressed with Tilly Norwood herself. What mattered to him was the reaction.

“Tilly is maybe 1% of the story,” he says. “The other 99% is the worry and the fear. What it did was strike a chord. We all needed to have this conversation.”

What stardom looks like now

Few people have spent more time inside Hollywood’s old star-making system than mega-producer Jerry Bruckheimer, whose films like “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Top Gun” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” helped turn actors into global commodities.

Even amid the disruption reshaping Hollywood, he believes the industry still knows how to discover and elevate stars. “It’ll happen,” he told The Times earlier this year. “Timothée Chalamet is a star and Zendaya is a star. Glen Powell is becoming a star — we’re going to bring him up. Damson Idris is going to be a star. Now they have to be smart and make good choices on what they do. That’s up to them.”

Stellan Skarsgård as Luthen Rael in the series “Andor.”

(Des Willie / Lucasfilm Ltd.)

The industry may still know how to make stars, but keeping them there has become harder. Chalamet’s biggest box office successes, like “Wonka” and the “Dune” films, have arrived as part of franchises rather than as standalone vehicles. Powell’s latest film, last month’s remake of “The Running Man,” fell short of expectations.

Bruckheimer himself has been pragmatic about AI. During postproduction on his recent Brad Pitt–led Formula One drama, an AI-based voice-matching tool was briefly used to replicate Pitt’s voice when the actor was unavailable for looping, a demonstration of how AI can extend a star’s reach rather than replace them. “AI is only going to get more useful for people in our business,” he says.

If Hollywood has been having more difficulty launching fresh faces, it has become adept at keeping familiar ones on the screen. AI tools can smooth a face, rebuild a voice or extend a performance long after an actor might otherwise have aged out. Stardom no longer has to end with retirement — or even death.

Stellan Skarsgård, for one, is uneasy with the idea. In recent years, the veteran actor — a current Oscar front-runner for “Sentimental Value” — has been part of two of Hollywood’s most valuable franchises, playing Luthen Rael in the “Star Wars” series “Andor” and Baron Harkonnen in the “Dune” films, roles built to carry on through sequels and spinoffs.

Asked about the prospect of an AI version of himself playing those characters after he’s gone, the 75-year-old Skarsgård bristles. The question carries particular weight. Three years ago he suffered a stroke, an experience that forced a reckoning with his craft and sense of mortality.

“SAG has been very adamant — there was a strike about it,” Skarsgård says. “And I do hope it won’t be like that in the future, that it will be controlled and that money won’t have all the rights.” He pauses. “You should have rights as a person, to your own voice, your own personality.”

Those questions — about control, consent and what survives a person — moved from the abstract to the practical last month at Hollywood X on the Fox lot.

Onstage, Jeff Clanagan mentioned a documentary that Hartbeat, Kevin Hart’s entertainment company, is producing with the estate of comedian Bernie Mac, who died in 2008. Built around Mac’s own audiobook narration, the documentary will rely on authorized existing recordings, not newly generated performances, pairing traditional animation with AI-assisted imagery to visualize moments Mac had already described. Clanagan said the technology offered a faster, less expensive way to bring those scenes to life.

But that took some convincing. An Oscar-winning director attached to the project initially wanted to tell the story entirely through traditional animated reenactments. Clanagan said it took months of persuasion — including creating sample scenes to demonstrate the approach — before that resistance eased. “Once he saw it, he was converted, and now we’re doing a little bit of a hybrid,” he said.

That work, Clanagan added, has become part of the job, not just externally but inside Hartbeat as well. “Part of it is educating the talent community on what you can do and still be aligned,” he said, noting that much of the hesitation comes from fear stoked by headlines and unfamiliarity with the tools. “It’s about helping people understand the process. People are starting to believe.”

As the Hollywood X panel ended, attendees filed out of a theater named for Darryl F. Zanuck, one of the architects of the studio-era star system, then crossed the Fox lot toward a reception. Along the way, they passed by cavernous soundstages, some painted with towering murals: Marilyn Monroe in “The Seven Year Itch,” Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music,” Bruce Willis in “Die Hard.” Faces from another era, still watching as the industry weighs what will endure.

Thousands protest as EU leaders clash over trade pact farmers fear will flood Europe with cheaper South American goods.

Hundreds of tractors have clogged the streets of Brussels as farmers converged on the Belgian capital to protest against the contentious trade agreement between the European Union and South American nations they say will destroy their livelihoods.

The demonstrations erupted on Thursday as EU leaders gathered for a summit where the fate of the Mercosur deal hung in the balance. More than 150 tractors blocked central Brussels, with an estimated 10,000 protesters expected in the European quarter, according to farm lobby Copa-Cogeca.

It made for a twin-tracked day of febrile tension outside and inside at the EU summit as leaders were perhaps more focused on a vote to determine whether they are able to use nearly $200bn in frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine over the next two years.

Outside the gilded halls on the streets, farmers hurled potatoes and eggs at police, set off fireworks and firecrackers, and brought traffic to a standstill.

Authorities responded with tear gas and water cannon, setting up roadblocks and closing tunnels around the city. One tractor displayed a sign reading: “Why import sugar from the other side of the world when we produce the best right here?”

“We’re here to say no to Mercosur,” Belgian dairy farmer Maxime Mabille said, accusing European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen of trying to “force the deal through” like “Europe has become a dictatorship”.

Protesters fear an influx of cheaper agricultural products from Brazil and neighbouring countries would undercut European producers. Their concerns centre on beef, sugar, rice, honey and soya beans from South American competitors facing less stringent regulations, particularly on pesticides banned in the EU.

“We’ve been protesting since 2024 in France, in Belgium and elsewhere,” said Florian Poncelet of Belgian farm union FJA. “We’d like to be finally listened to.”

France and Italy now lead opposition to the deal, with President Emmanuel Macron declaring that “we are not ready” and the agreement “cannot be signed” in its current form.

France has coordinated with Poland, Belgium, Austria and Ireland to force a postponement, giving critics sufficient votes within the European Council to potentially block the pact.

However, Germany and Spain are pushing hard for approval. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned that decisions “must be made now” if the EU wants to “remain credible in global trade policy”, while Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez argued the deal would give Europe “geo-economic and geopolitical weight” against adversaries.

The agreement, 25 years in the making, would create the world’s largest free-trade area covering 780 million people and a quarter of global gross domestic product (GDP).

Supporters say it offers a counterweight to China and would boost European exports of vehicles, machinery and wines amid rising US tariffs.

Despite provisional safeguards negotiated on Wednesday to cap sensitive imports, opposition has intensified. Von der Leyen remains determined to travel to Brazil this weekend to sign the deal, but needs backing from at least two-thirds of EU nations.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva issued an ultimatum on Wednesday, warning that Saturday represents a “now or never” moment, adding that “Brazil won’t make any more agreements while I’m president” if the deal fails.