Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1444689
75 / SAG-AFTR A SPECIAL ISSUE 2022 / sagaftra.org The Fast Saga, The Good Liar, Berlin, I Love You, Anna, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, The Leisure Seeker and Trumbo. Mirren, who affectionately refers to herself and her fellow actors as "rogues and vagabonds," got her SAG card when she came to the United States in 1984 to do a movie called 2010: The Year We Make Contact, the sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey. She takes pride in being a union member. "I've always been a unionist all my life. I'm a very proud member of SAG-AFTRA," she said. "Without the protection of a union, really, you are thrown to the wolves, aren't you? You are in a very savage world without that protection. Obviously, there is strength in numbers, and I have in fact been a part of union action more than once in my life." She not only stands side by side with her fellow union members, she also has great affection for them. In an interview with SAG-AFTRA in December, Mirren had a message for union actors. "Thank you for being you. Thank you for choosing this ridiculous, dangerous, wonderful, creative, obsessive, profession that is the profession of being an actor," she said. "[W]hen we open this beautiful parcel, it's so brightly and perfectly wrapped with wonderful wrapping and on it, it says, 'You are an actor,' and you open this wonderful parcel, and in it are all kinds of beautiful surprises and heartbreak and difficulties and struggle and all of that. But I love actors for the fact that they decided to open that parcel, and I'm one of them." Prime Suspect 5: Errors of Judgement, 1996 The Queen, 2006 Academy Award- winner Mirren and husband, director Taylor Hackford, 2007. PBS/PHOTOFES T MIR A M A X /PHOTOFES T A M PA S/PHOTOFES T