Hollywood stunt performers ‘screwed over’ by deal to end actor’s strike, fear they’ll be replaced by AI

nypost.com:

historically long actors’ strike and fear their industry will be “decimated” by the move.The Screen Actors Guild struck a deal to get actors and performers back to work on Nov.

9 after the 118-day strike, but the stunt workers who keep Marvel movies action-packed and help actors look superhuman on screensay the offered deal threatens their future.“I’m terrified [this contract] is going to decimate the stunt industry,” Stuntwoman’s Association of Motion Pictures member Heidi Pascoe exclusively told The Post.“The stunt community — [which] is really small — is really getting screwed over.

We don’t have the numbers to stop this from going through. We just don’t,” Pascoe added.Pascoe claims stunt workers are looked upon as the “red-headed stepchildren,” of the SAG union, with a long history of being overlooked and not listened to.The performers are concerned the contract negotiated by SAG-AFTRA is not strong enough at stopping studios creating “digital replicas” of people and using Artificial Intelligence.Stunt performers and extras claim language in the contract allowing studios to use “the voice or likeness of the performer” with the “purpose of portraying the performer” in parts of a film or TV series the actor didn’t “actually perform” sounds like a death sentence.They fear Hollywood’s plan to “scan” actors will eliminate the need for stunt doubles who carry out the physically demanding flips, jumps and other high adrenaline tasks during filming.Stuntwoman Katie Rowe told The Post although AI technology “isn’t there yet” in terms of replacing stunt workers completely, it will quickly become a reality unless it is stopped.“I think replacing people is five years away,” speculates Rowe.“They can certainly get close but they.