Sean Astin has been elected to serve as the next national president of SAG-AFTRA.
The actors union announced the results Friday evening, revealing that Astin was elected to succeed Fran Drescher with 79.25% of the vote. He will serve a two-year term alongside Michelle Hurd, who was selected for secretary-treasurer with 64.77% of the vote. Both begin their terms immediately.
Runner-up Chuck Slavin received 20.75% of the votes for president, while his running mate Peter Antico received 35.23% of the votes for secretary-treasurer.
Per the union, about 17% of SAG-AFTRA’s 117,000+ eligible members submitted ballots in this year’s national election. That’s quite a decline from 2023, when nearly 23% of the union voted overwhelmingly to re-elect Drescher. When she was first elected in 2021, more than 26% of the national membership submitted ballots.
The local Los Angeles and New York election results also were revealed Friday. Drescher’s 2021 and 2023 running mate Joely Fisher, who had been national secretary-treasurer, won her bid for Los Angeles Local president, beating Antico and Brian Kruse with 66.64% of the vote. SAG-AFTRA says 7,406 of the 56,651 eligible members — just 13% — of the Los Angeles local submitted ballots.
Lisa Ann Walter was elected First Vice President and David Jolliffe was elected Second Vice President of the Los Angeles Local. Unopposed national board member candidate Dan Navarro also officially secured his seat.
As for New York, Ezra Knight was elected Local President with 72.88% of the vote, compared to Kevin Cannon’s 27.12%. Linda Powell was elected 1st Vice President, Anthony Rapp was elected 2nd Vice President, Jim Kerr was elected 3rd Vice President, and Liz Zazzi was elected 4th Vice President. Janice Pendarvis, who ran unopposed, will officially get a New York national board member seat.
The turnout was slightly better in New York with 16% of the 27,737 eligible voters casting ballots.
As the latest SAG-AFTRA National President, Astin follows in the footsteps of his mother Patty Duke, the Valley of the Dolls and The Miracle Worker actress who became the second woman to ever run the then-Screen Actors Guild in 1985. She held the position for three years.
Oscar nominee and Lord of the Rings alum Astin will have quite the task ahead of them at the top of next year as SAG-AFTRA returns to the negotiating table with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which collectively bargains on behalf of the major Hollywood studios.
This will be the first contract negotiation cycle since the 2023 strike, regarding an industry that has been hit hard by a global production contraction that has resulted in far less work. There still are some concerns the union is seeking to address, primarily regarding technological advances in artificial intelligence over the past three years.
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