Natasha Lyonne, pictured right here in November 2022, is one in every of a number of actors who’s auctioning off distinctive experiences to assist TV and film crews impacted by the continuing writers’ strike

Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for Vox Media

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Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for Vox Media

Natasha Lyonne, pictured right here in November 2022, is one in every of a number of actors who’s auctioning off distinctive experiences to assist TV and film crews impacted by the continuing writers’ strike

Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for Vox Media

You know that second if you’ve knocked out 12 of 73 clues for the New York Times crossword, you are beginning to sweat, and also you assume to your self, “Man, I really wish the Emmy-award-winning actress Natasha Lyonne of Orange is the New Black was here to help me power through?”

OK, so possibly it is not a situation you’ve got been dreaming about, nevertheless it may quickly be your actuality — that’s you probably have upwards of $2,100 to bid in a brand new on-line public sale to assist the continuing writers and actors strike.

For the following eight days, these with huge checkbooks can vie for a trove of superstar experiences that includes a few of Hollywood’s most beloved names.

The public sale is hosted through Ebay and arranged by the Union Solidarity Coalition, which is pledging to financially assist crew members who misplaced their medical health insurance as the film and television industry ground to a halt this summer.

That means you can pay for Lena Dunham to color a mural in your house (main bid at time of publication: $3,050), for Bob Odenkirk and David Cross to take you out to dinner ($2,624) or for Busy Philipps to be your buddy at a pottery class ($2,800).

John Lithgow will paint a watercolor portrait of your pup ($4,050) and Adam Scott will take it for a one-hour stroll ($2,025). The solid of Bob’s Burgers will write and carry out a track only for you ($3,050) and the solid of The Bear is shelling out a sartorial increase within the type of a signed blue apron ($1,525).

You also can purchase Tom Waits’ fedora ($1,525), Brit Marling’s OA wolf hoodie ($4,000) or a Hawaiian shirt co-signed by Daniel Radcliffe and “Weird Al” Yankovich ($1,600).

There’s additionally a handful of one-on-one digital hangouts with names like Maggie Gyllenhaal, Sarah Silverman and Zooey Deschanel (really, with the entire solid of New Girl), promising all the things from profession teaching to relationship recommendation — a type of display time extra intimate than catching your favourite reveals’ new episode, a ritual the public has been sorely missing.

The Writers Guild of America first known as a strike in early May and was joined by the actors’ guild, SAG-AFTRA, in July. (SAG-AFTRA also represents most of NPR’s journalists, however beneath a separate contract.)

Both unions are combating main leisure studios for elevated compensation, rules for AI utilization and phrases for streaming. Negotiations are reportedly at a standstill.

The affiliation that represents the studios publicly launched the concessions they provided to writers in a press release on Aug. 22, which included a 13% improve in pay over three years and will increase in some particular varieties of residual funds.

WGA described the offer as “neither nothing nor nearly enough” and stuffed with “loopholes, limitations and omissions” that had been “too numerous to single out.”

SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher told NPR last week that the dialog could not transfer ahead till the studio bosses put apart their monetary greed and began performing with empathy.