Remember how awful the Writers’ Strike was last year? Without anyone to churn out scripts, dozens of primetime TV shows stalled, film productions were delayed and the tube was overrun with reality shows. 

Now imagine if the actors went on strike.

Members of the Screen Actors Guild are royally ticked at the Alliance of Motion Picture and TV Producers (i.e., the Big Studios), who have not renewed their contract after it expired at the end of June. Since then, they’ve been squabbling over compensation and residuals and now a whole bunch of famous folk are ready to go on strike.

A “statement of support” was released by a slew of big names, including Mel Gibson, Ed Harris, Holly Hunter, Martin Sheen and Sandra Oh, to promote the strike-authorization vote scheduled for January 2.

But here’s the twist.

Bigger stars such as Tom Hanks, George Clooney, Alec Baldwin, Steve Carrell, Jennifer Garner, Charlize Theron, Matt Damon, Morgan Freeman, Pierce Brosnan, Ewan McGregor, Billy Crystal, Edward Norton, Tobey Maguire and others have all signed a petition to oppose the strike.

The petition says:

“We feel very strongly that SAG members should not vote to authorize a strike at this time. We don’t think that an authorization can be looked at as merely a bargaining tool. It must be looked at as what it is—an agreement to strike if negotiations fail. We support our union and we support the issues we’re fighting for, but we do not believe in all good conscience that now is the time to be putting people out of work.”

Damn Right! Even the rich people know it’s rough out there.

We’ll see what happens on the 2nd.

George Clooney was in Berlin last night for the “Herz Feuer Kinder” Charity Gala, presenting the “Golden Heart” to aid workers from Darfur.

And he grew a sweet little Hitler moustache just for the occasion!