The star actors of the hit TV show Gilmore Girls have taken aim at the streaming service giant Netflix over the residual payments that have caused the writers and actors strikes that have been taking place across Hollywood.
Sean Gunn, who plays Kirk in the show, recently told Rolling Stone, “I think Gilmore Girls was sort of the perfect example of the type of show that has been disrespected by the new model.”
“I just think it’s wrong for us to not know how many units there have been of the product that they’re selling,” Kirk added. “If I have two shows on Netflix, Netflix thinks it’s fine for me to not know which one of them performs better than the other. That’s just wrong from a business perspective.”
Meanwhile, Keiki Agena, who played Kim Lane, noted that audiences knew about Gilmore Girls before streaming took off, but streaming helped it to gain traction and a larger viewership.
She noted, “And yet there are heartbreaking stories I’ve heard from other people about how you can be on a well-respected show and not be able to make rent and not be able to afford to keep doing what you love to do because it’s just not paying enough money to live.”
Alan Loayza, who plays Colin McCrae, admitted, “I just always kind of accepted the fact that I would receive a small amount of residuals, but I never had a concept of what that could possibly mean if the show became a cultural phenomenon like it has.”
Loayza feels that if Gilmore Girls had arrived on network television around 15 or 20 years ago, then he’d probably be doing “a lot better” than he is now. “I’m not seeing financial gain for this newfound popularity,” he said. “None of us are.”
Then Brian Fuller’s John Cabrera said, “I think for a lot of actors and writers, the idea that the world would become a streaming world was too abstract and because of it, we’ve lost streaming in a major way. There have been incremental changes throughout the decade but they’re just not enough.”
