Academy Award-winning actress Anne Hathaway stepped out of a Vanity Fair photoshoot on Tuesday, after learning that more than 400 Condé Nast Union Members were on a 24-hour strike, according to Variety.
While Hathaway was getting her hair and makeup done, a SAG-AFTRA staffer notified Hathaway’s team of the strike and suggested that she support the workers.
“They hadn’t even started taking photos yet,” a source told Variety. “Once Anne was made aware of what was going on, she just got up from hair and makeup and left.”
Despite Hathaway’s decision to walk away, her departure was not “dramatic” and is set to be rescheduled, another source told Page Six.
“Great care was taken to make sure it didn’t violate union rules,” the source said. “Everything was above board.”
The union for Condé Nast — which includes the brands Vanity Fair, Vogue, Teen Vogue, GQ, Bon Appétit, Architectural Digest, Allure, Glamour, Self, Epicurious, Condé Nast Traveler and Them — thanked Hathaway for supporting the walkout.
“If Runway had a union The Devil Wears Prada would’ve been 30 seconds long,” the union posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Thank you Anne Hathaway for not crossing our picket line.”
SAG-AFTRA, which concluded a monthslong strike of its own in November, supported the Condé Nast strike in a statement.
“Employers like Condé Nast are legally and morally obligated to bargain in good faith with their workers, so it’s alarming that Condé Nast executives are employing regressive, union-busting tactics and making unfair counter proposals,” SAG-AFTRA posted on X. “Condé Nast workers have the full backing of SAG-AFTRA.”
The company, made up of more than 5,000 employees, announced in November that it plans to lay off 5% of workers in an effort to evolve with the changing industry, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which cited CEO Roger Lynch. Ninety-four union workers were included in the layoffs. As such, the union has attempted to negotiate the number of layoffs as well as severance packages, but the union claims that the company has since decreased its initial severance offer by 50% while keeping the same number of planned union layoffs.
On Monday, the union’s Condé Nast Entertainment unit vice chair Ben Dewey told The Hollywood Reporter that the walkout “is really about the company engaging in regressive bargaining and breaking the law in bargaining by rescinding an offer that they had previously made around layoffs.”
“There’s so much solidarity that everybody is really looking out for their coworkers and willing to go on strike for this unfair way that the company is engaging in bargaining.”
Last week, Condé Nast also announced that the music publication Pitchfork would be moved under GQ, a men’s magazine, resulting in eight layoffs.
Tuesday’s strike was intentionally timed to coincide with the scheduled announcement of the Oscar nominations, a notably busy news day for many workers across the company’s brands.
“We just really want to show how much Condé relies on union members to cover big events like the Oscar nominations,” Dewey added.
The union has a hardship fund to help union members who may be impacted financially by Tuesday’s strike.