Union Lets Tom Cruise Act During Strike From Fear Of What He’ll Do When He Can’t Make Movies

LOS ANGELES—Approving the singular exception with a unanimous vote from all 160,000 members, SAG-AFTRA announced Monday that it would continue allowing Tom Cruise to act during the strike for fear of what he would do if he couldn’t make movies. “Hollywood has enough problems as it is without this maniac finding himself with too much time on his hands,” said union president Fran Drescher, adding that this decision to allow a single performer to cross the picket line was not made lightly, but rather out of genuine terror for what a grinning, dead-eyed Cruise outfitted with numerous pyrotechnics might do if he went more than a few days without filming an action sequence. “You can tell there is an unrelenting darkness within him that can only be exorcised by jumping a motorcycle into a canyon or parachuting out of a plane in semi-orbit—and none of us wants to find out where that energy would be redirected were he not able to spend 17 hours a day performing stunts for a camera crew. In fact, SAG is going to go ahead and make up some sort of official scab card that gives him a lifetime pass to keep busy, far away from the rest of us, during this and any future strikes. This is bigger than fairness or residuals—this is life or death for every living being in California and beyond.” At press time, an excitable Tom Cruise screaming “Woo-hoo!” had fired up a jet pack on the picket line, killing 17 A-list actors and burning off Jennifer Lawrence’s face.