Fran Drescher Calls For End To Hollywood’s COVID Vaccine Mandate in SAG Awards Speech

SAG-AFTRA president and The Nanny actress Fran Drescher urged Hollywood to end its vaccine mandates in her opening remarks at the 2023 Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremony on Sunday (Feb. 26), calling for everyone to use their financial influence to “make governors act” on the issue.

“As the nation declares an end to the COVID emergency this May, I hope we will see everyone return to work in equal opportunity!” she said, per Deadline.

“Our industry brings billions of production dollars to states across the nation, but if they want our business, let’s wield our financial influence to make governors act in the best interest of freedom, diversity, inclusion and democracy,” she declared.

Hollywood’s COVID-19 safety protocols were loosened in January 2023 amid decreasing hospital admissions. In this new agreement, leading industry unions agreed that productions in areas with low COVID-19 hospital admissions can end pre-employment testing for employees working closely with principal actors. It also ended the requirement to have COVID-19 compliance supervisors on set. 

This agreement is in effect through April 1, 2023, while the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s declaration of COVID-19 as a Public Health Emergency is set to expire in May 2023.

Drescher has been an outspoken critic of the industry’s vaccine mandates for some time now. In 2022, she posted a TikTok celebrating Disney’s decision to stop requiring its cast and crew members be vaccinated against the virus. 

“As the president of SAG-AFTRA, it has been my obligation to follow the board’s decision to support the employer’s privilege to vaccine mandate productions as they so pleased,” she told her followers in the video. “As Fran Drescher, as well as the president of SAG-AFTRA, I have been outspoken, publicly, as well as with my board and executive director, in defense of those members who are unvaccinated for a myriad of reasons and as a consequence has lost their livelihood, their representation, and their health benefits.”

Drescher continued, “When equal citizens stop being equal, when cards must be presented to identify whether you are included or excluded, we stand at the tipping point of an America I no longer recognize.” 

The actress’s call for the end of vaccine mandates follows closely behind Woody Harrelson’s anti-vax monologue on this weekend’s Saturday Night Live. The actor, who was hosting the show for the fifth time, compared COVID vaccine manufacturers to drug cartels. 

Drescher ended her remarks at the Screen Actors Guild Awards with a bold line from her character Bobbi Flekman in the 1984 movie, This is Spinal Tap: “Money talks and bullshit walks!”