HBO/Max’s House of the Dragon is currently filming its second season in the UK. As in, they’re still filming even though SAG-AFTRA is on strike. While many of the actors on HotD are SAG members, there are also a lot of card-carrying Equity members, which is the actors’ union in the UK. While Equity is “standing with” SAG-AFTRA, the local anti-union laws in the UK basically say that HotD actors have to keep working through the strike.

“House of the Dragon” can continue filming in the U.K. despite the SAG-AFTRA actors strike, Variety can reveal. Just as the U.S. actors union announced a strike Thursday due to its inability to ink a new deal with the AMPTP, sources confirmed that production is planned to proceed as scheduled on the second season of the “Game of Thrones” prequel.

The HBO series’ cast is composed of primarily U.K. actors who are working under contracts governed by the local union, Equity. As such, the series is technically allowed to continue filming because Equity members aren’t legally allowed to strike in solidarity with the U.S. union.

Equity shared its actors strike guidance with its 47,000 members on Thursday, shortly before the strike was officially declared by SAG-AFTRA, stating: “Equity U.K. will support SAG-AFTRA and its members by all lawful means. A performer joining the strike (or refusing to cross a picket line) in the U.K. will have no protection against being dismissed or sued for breach of contract by the producer or the engager. Likewise, if Equity encourages anyone to join the strike or not cross a picket line, Equity itself will be acting unlawfully and hence liable for damages or an injunction,” Equity said in its guidance to members.

Sources indicate that the U.K.’s strict union laws have prevented an extensive show of solidarity from Equity, which can’t legally call a strike to support SAG-AFTRA due to restrictive British legislation.

Equity posited a number of scenarios under which actors on “House of the Dragon” can continue to work. The guidance for actors who are Equity members but not SAG-AFTRA members who are working in the U.K. on an Equity contract for a U.S. producer is that they continue to work as they have no protection from being dismissed or sued by the producer. It is the same guidance for SAG-AFTRA members who are not Equity members in a similar production. For SAG-AFTRA members on an Equity contract under Global Rule 1, which states that a SAG-AFTRA member cannot work on any project, anywhere in the world, that is not covered under a SAG-AFTRA agreement, the guidance is again to continue working. The guidance for more actors in complicated scenarios is to seek advice from SAG-AFTRA.

[From Variety]

What’s bonkers is that HotD has been filming for months through the writers’ strike too – allegedly, “all” of the Dragon scripts were “completed” before the WGA strike. So they’ve been filming for months with no writers on set, no one to rewrite or update lines, no script coordinators? And now Equity is telling their actors that they can’t strike in solidarity with SAG, even though several of those British actors are ALSO members of SAG. Hm. It would be interesting to see if the actors – or even just a few of the actors – decide to say f–k it and go on strike. This is the loophole many studios and streamers will exploit too, they’ll go with overseas productions, foreign actors and locales with little to no union protection.

Photos courtesy of HBO/Max.