‘The Nanny’ Comes Home to New York and Gives Studio Heads a Talking-to

Fran Drescher, the actress and union leader, leaned into her Queens roots in a City Hall appearance to urge support for the actors’ strike.

Inside New York’s vaulted City Council chamber, the actress Fran Drescher was about to address council members about the plight of the thousands of actors on strike whom she represents as the president of their union.

But her microphone wasn’t on.

Ms. Drescher, once the flashy girl from Flushing, Queens, and until recently known less for her union organizing and more for her turn as a sitcom nanny with the adenoidal screech of a braking 7 Train, flipped the switch.

“Ah,” she said, her nasal tones now amplified to fill the chamber. “Now, you’ll be sorry.”

Ms. Drescher, who played Fran Fine, the sassy protagonist of “The Nanny,” has risen to new prominence in her role as president of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or SAG-AFTRA, following its decision to call a strike last month.

The union joined the Writers Guild of America, which has been on strike for three months, in demanding higher pay and safeguards against artificial intelligence. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents Hollywood studios, has said it had tried to reach a reasonable deal at a challenging time for the industry. The studios reached out to the striking writers on Tuesday night to restart talks but are not currently holding any talks with the actors.

In New York, her hometown and that of roughly 36,000 members of her union, Ms. Drescher had come to support a wholly symbolic resolution put forward by Councilwoman Carmen De La Rosa, a Democrat who represents Upper Manhattan. The resolution, which passed unanimously, emphasized the Council’s support for the striking entertainment industry workers.

But if anyone was expecting a flash of Hollywood glitter in the normally workaday chambers, Ms. Drescher, a City University of New York dropout, leans into her more humble New York City roots. (“Thems are my peeps!” she exclaimed after a council member introduced herself as representing the Lower East Side and Chelsea.)

While many actors are highly compensated, Ms. Drescher said that 86 percent of the union’s 160,000 members make less than $26,500 a year.

“As a kid growing up in Flushing, Queens, I dreamed about being a professional actor someday,” she said. “But I never imagined that the show business that was so romanticized in the old movies of the 1930s and ’40s in 2023 would actually be led by such greed.”

Scott Rowe, a spokesperson for the Hollywood studios, did not respond directly to the City Council resolution. “We remain committed to finding a path to mutually beneficial deals with both unions,” he said.

The benches of the chamber and a rally in the park outside just before the hearing were filled with actors of all stripes, from extras to a few stars. They included Radio Man, a.k.a. Craig Castaldo, an iconic background actor and autograph merchant; a man who said he is known as the Celebrity Waiter at the TGI Fridays where he works when he is not performing; and Michelle Hurd, or Detective Monique Jeffries, as she was known on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.”

Ms. Hurd, who currently stars on “Star Trek: Picard,” was there in her role as a member of SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating committee. A native of Manhattan, she said she has seen in person how Ms. Drescher’s Noo Yawk bravado is an asset at Los Angeles bargaining tables.

“Her speech pattern, her tone, her unfiltered zest — when she spoke, the entire room shook,” Ms. Hurd said in an interview. “They were not ready for that strong, female, powerful, East Coast sound.”
That was on display when Ms. Drescher’s Queens-ese ricocheted up to the Council rafters as she announced wealthy studio executives’ unwillingness to meet her at the negotiating table.

“I’m not counting anyone else’s shekels,” she said. “But cut me in for God’s sake!”
At the rally in City Hall Park, Ms. Drescher was joined by union representatives, elected officials and at least one washed-up actor: Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate, who told the crowd waved pro-strike pickets that his first love had been acting. Although he had landed some roles, he said, he had fallen just short of the requirements for union membership before he found politics.

Bringing the fight from Hollywood to New York City, he said, would make people understand that the vast majority of actors were not highly compensated celebrities.

In New York City, television and film productions supported 185,000 jobs in 2019, the last year that data was available, including related work like vehicle rentals, catering and legal services, according to the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment.

“When you were home during the pandemic and binge-watching on streaming, you were watching their work,” Mr. Williams said. “Their work helps us get through life.”