Strike Days: Sandra Oh As The Marchers' It Girl

Anyone who saw Sideways remembers Sandra Oh taking her motorcycle helmet and heartily whacking Thomas Haden Church's Jack with it (he'd seduced her under false pretenses). As an actress, most recently on Grey's Anatomy but over the years in films (Sideways was made by her ex Alexander Payne, she's staked her territory with a feisty spirit well matched with her offbeat, distinctive beauty. (She was raised outside Ottawa by a Korean immigrant family stocked with chemists and lawyers). Both one of People's 50 Most Beautiful and a 2006 Emmy winner, she's the modern kind of TV star who knows how to hold up the network for a raise (Oh makes well north of $100,000 per episode); playwright friend Diana Son recalled to the New York Times thinking, "Who is this terrifyingly uninhibited person?" when they first met.

That's the Oh one sees in this video clip on You Tube and that presumably is the Oh who will be evident tomorrow as the featured thespian talent at the WGA's sizable rally following a march down Hollywood Boulevard.

It's now a commonplace among those covering the strike to tip their hat to the writers' ongoing, landslide propaganda victory over the companies; one almost hesitates to add to the pile by linking to this video by film maker Nick Jasenovec (a college pal of SNL vet and goofy Superbad cop Bill Hader) of a hapless, young suit standing in for the AMPTP's lack of galvanizing agitprop by picketing the WGA headquarters as a desperate solo.

With the Artful Writers web site's Craig Mazin emerging more and more as a true moderate (here he avers that the show runners have to come back), the pressure remained on that group--even as Deadline Hollywood Daily's Nikki Finke reported that the WGA's Strike Rules Compliance Committee had called in a writer-produceer today to question him as to whether he'd been violating guild strike rules.

Said Mazin of the show runners:

They have to go back to work. They have to. The fact that they did what they did was individually brave and commendable, but collectively, it was a high risk/low gain strategy. Shutting down post earlier than normal maybe stole back a few more weeks of episodes than a simple cessation of writing would have, but ultimately, they can't all end up in breach. Furthermore, whenever we can mitigate collateral damage to other working people (particularly unionized ones like crew), we ought to. I'm happy that [Lost's Carlton] Cuse is going back to work, and I've spoken with a show runner who believes quite a few more will return now that negotiations seem to be percolating again.

Anyone looking for a fairly quick primer on strike issues as they currently stand could do worse than the Los Angles Times' lengthy takeout (part of recently reinvigorated strike coverage) of today, or, from the writers' perspective, this personalized history lesson from the New Republic.

Tomorrow's march, depending on what sort of a news day the world has, could generate as much national media attention as any strike event thus far--and with the holiday break looming before negotiations resume, might stand as the statement that reverberates over the long weekend for that already scribe-friendly public. Between that mood and the first mutters from advertisers about wanting some of their ad money back as television's cash cows drop by the wayside, and a quartet of major feature films that have been postponed, the writers seem fairly well entrenched--even as they nervously eye their $12 million strike fund.

(Actor Tim Robbins presents the Outstanding Cast in a Motion Picture award for Sideways to Sandra Oh at the Screen Actors Guild awards, February, 2205; photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)