Halloween is the best time of the year to take a day off being yourself and be someone (or something) else. Many people opt to take inspiration from their favorite movie and TV characters, including Hollywood actors. Unfortunately for actors this year, SAG-AFTRA has just issued guidelines regarding All Hallows’ Eve costumes, and it limits who they can dress up as while the union continues to picket studios. So obviously Ryan Reynolds had a clever take on the news.
The SAG-AFTRA strike may be the reason tons of actors are going to return their Halloween costumes or simply wear them in private following its new rules for Halloween. As the SAG-AFTRA website shared, if actors dress up in costumes inspired by things like the Barbie movie or Marvel characters, they’ll be breaking strike rules. Reynolds responded to the development by writing this on Twitter:
I look forward to screaming 'scab' at my 8 year old all night. She’s not in the union but she needs to learn.
Reynolds' latest hilarious joke pokes fun at how the guidelines certainly create some murky waters for parents of actors. Most Halloween costumes found at stores are inspired by big movies, so when actors like Reynolds take their kids trick-or-treating, are they supposed to call them “scabs” for doing so? As the Deadpool actor said, his eight-year-old is not part of the union, but she may very well be breaking the SAG-AFTRA rules.
The guidelines ask for actors to celebrate Halloween this year by “staying in solidarity with the TV/Theatrical/Streaming strike” by choosing costumes that are inspired by generalized characters and figures rather than taking inspiration from characters in “struck content.” They’ve been asked not to post photos on social media of such costumes. One tip the union gave is to dress up like a character from an animated TV show.
It’s unfortunate because there have been so many great movie-oriented Halloween costumes done by celebrities in the past. Last year, for example, Nina Dobrev was Vecna from Stranger Things, Vanessa Hudgens emulated Natalie Portman’s Black Swan, and Stephen Amell was Wilson the Volleyball from Cast Away. This year, they presumably could not go public with these costumes due to the strike because they would be inadvertently promoting characters owned by studios.
It’s a shame since 2023’s biggest movies can inspire so many great Halloween costume ideas. Even so, there are certainly a ton of ways actors can enjoy celebrating Halloween without paying homage to characters from movies and television shows that are considered “struck.”
So this year, Ryan Reynolds couldn’t dust off his Deadpool suit if he wanted to (unless he wants to be called a “scab” himself), as filming for Deadpool 3 continues to be stalled. It was also just reported that Reynolds’ long-awaited return to the Marvel character has been delayed, and more changes to the upcoming Marvel movies schedule are expected. For the time being, SAG-AFTRA negotiations have actually been suspended too, so we don’t expect the union and Hollywood studios to magically come to a conclusion just in time for Halloween.
