‘Oppenheimer’ Cast Walks Out Of Their Own London Premiere in Solidarity With Imminent Actors Guild Strike

(Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)

The highly anticipated summer film Oppenheimer premiered in London on Thursday but just as the film was about to be shown, director Christopher Nolan announced the entire cast had left to join the actors guild strike.

At the premiere, much of the cast made their way down the red carpet including Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Cillian Murphy, and Robert Downey Jr. The film won’t be released until July 21st but since Wednesday night an imminent actors guild strike was expected to begin.

Blunt shared in an interview on the red carpet with Deadline, that the cast had a plan to leave the event if the strike was officially called.

“I think right now we are just sorting of … I hope everyone makes a fair deal and we are here to celebrate this movie. And if they call it, we’ll be leaving together as cast in unity with everyone … We are gonna have to. We are gonna have to. We will see what happens. Right now it’s the joy to be together,” Blunt told Deadline.

Damon revealed to Variety that the looming actors’ strike was the reason the London premiere was moved up an hour earlier than expected. “We know the second it’s called, we’re going home,” he said.

At the beginning of the premiere, Nolan took the stage to introduce the film alongside some of it’s creators. Noticeably absent was the star-studded cast.

“Unfortunately they’re off to write their picket signs for what we believe to be an imminent strike by SAG, uh, joining my guild, the Writer’s Guild in the struggle for fair wages for working members of those unions,” Nolan said.

Moments after news broke that the cast had left, the SAG-AFTRA actors guild announced that it would officially go on strike, joining the writers guild who has been picketing since May 2nd.

Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com