The union representing some 160,000 tv and film actors stated on Friday evening that it could proceed contract negotiations with the key Hollywood studios and streaming companies, extending the present deal — which had been set to run out at midnight — by means of July 12.

The choice is a welcome reprieve, a minimum of for the second, for a beleaguered Hollywood, the place a writers’ strike has entered its ninth week endlessly. A second strike by the actors’ union, SAG-AFTRA, the trade’s largest labor group, would primarily shut Hollywood down.

Should the actors go on strike, they and writers could be collectively on the picket strains for the primary time since 1960. The actors final went on strike for a big interval in 1980, after they had been out for 3 months.

The union’s president, Fran Drescher, appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Thursday to advertise a brand new undertaking and, when requested if the 2 events had been making headway, stated: “In some areas we are. In some areas we’re not.”

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the commerce affiliation negotiating for the studios, declined to touch upon Friday.

The actors’ union and the studios started negotiating on June 7, with SAG-AFTRA’s membership authorizing a strike earlier than discussions started.

An actors’ strike would compound the labor points in an trade that has already seen a big decline within the manufacturing of reveals and films. Striking writers have shut down some productions, and studios have been unable to shepherd unfinished scripts by means of the event course of with out writers to work on them.

The writers are hopeful that the actors be part of them in putting, a transfer that will put their union in a stronger negotiating place with the studios.

The writers had been unable to attain such an alliance with the administrators’ guild, which ratified a brand new contract final week with 87 % of the membership voting in favor. Leaders of the Writers Guild of America referred to as the administrators’ deal a part of a “playbook” to “divide and conquer” the varied unions combating for elevated wages and heftier residuals.

On Tuesday, a big group of actors, together with stars like Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence and Ms. Drescher, despatched a letter to the union reasserting their willingness to strike.

“We are concerned by the idea that SAG-AFTRA members may be ready to make sacrifices that leadership is not,” the letter stated, considerably curiously given Ms. Drescher’s place within the union.

The actors added that points comparable to minimal pay, residuals, the casting course of and laws surrounding synthetic intelligence wanted to be addressed.

“This is an unprecedented inflection point in our industry, and what might be considered a good deal in any other years is simply not enough,” the letter stated. “We feel that our wages, our craft, our creative freedom and the power of our union have all been undermined in the last decade. We need to reverse those trajectories.”