Clooney and Hanks clash over actors’ strike

Disputes between actors are usually over who should have the biggest trailer on set, however George Clooney (pictured) and Tom Hanks are divided over a more serious conflict - the strike being called by the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), an action that could eclipse the now resolved screenwriters' dispute which almost brought Hollywood to a standstill.

Thus far, the two have not publically debated the rights and wrongs of the proposed action, which relates to a variety of matters, including payments for film and video clips screened online, but they have made their feelings abundantly clear. Clooney has donated $25,000 to the Actors Fund, which will help less well-heeled performers survive through the strike. Hanks, however, believes the dispute should be resolved before it gets to this stage. He recently took a full-page advert out in Variety urging both sides, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and SAG, to mend their differences amicably.

"The pair of them (Hanks and Clooney) are at loggerheads, and if the strike does go ahead you can expect them to get vocal about it," says The First Post's Hollywood mole. And the strike, which could begin as early as next week, may also spill over into the political arena. California's Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is a SAG member, was the subject of a heated editorial in yesterday's Los Angeles Times, which criticised his failure to intervene. One part of it read: "We saw how you handled the writers' strike... It was, frankly, kind of a girlie-man performance."