A day of picketing the set of the Starz/Lionsgate sequence BMF in Atlanta turned harmful for WGA writers Brian Egeston and Gabriel Alejandro Garza. Egeston claimed in a sequence of tweets Thursday afternoon, accompanied by pictures, that BMF line producer Ian Woolf, driving an SUV, pointed the car at Egeston “as if it had been a weapon and slammed the breaks inside six ft of writers.”
Egeston’s account was corroborated by Garza, a strike captain, who stated that he was standing subsequent to Egeston when the alleged incident occurred and described it in a prolonged assertion on Twitter Thursday night. Garza claimed that he and Egeston had been on a public sidewalk, not impending site visitors, when Woolf allegedly hit the accelerator, adopted by the break as “he was trying immediately at us the complete time and stored the car pointed at us.”
Each Egeston, who has written on Home of Payne, Good Concord and The Recreation, and Garza (The Flash, The Winchesters), stated that they had been peacefully protesting and that Woolf’s clarification for his conduct was that he “tried to scare us.”
Garza claimed that they’ve a recording of Woolf’s admission, by which he additionally identifies himself.
TV author Tom Smuts, who’s married to WGA West president Meredith Stiehm, in a Twitter put up early Friday, supplied an eyewitness account of the occasions that transpired after Woolf “used his SUV to threaten and intimidate Brian Egeston and fellow WGA member Gabe Garza.”
Smuts confirmed Egeston and Garza’s claims that they had been advised repeatedly by Woolf he was attempting to scare them so [picketers] would go away. He additionally stated he witnessed Woolf as he “desperately pleaded with the Teamsters of Native 728 to cross our picket strains, they usually refused.”
When Woolf was unable to persuade the Teamsters to cross the picket strains, he tried to do the work himself at a car parking zone positioned on Hank Aaron Drive. As per Smuts, Woolf was “opening trailers, turning on mills, driving image automobiles to set, and many others.”
Lionsgate has launched an investigation into the incident.
“We take acts of intimidation and threats of violence severely and examine them totally,” the corporate stated in an announcement to Deadline. “As we proceed to analyze, now we have despatched residence the person concerned.”
In accordance with sources, the incident has been reported to the WGA. Deadline has reached to Egeston, Garza Woolf and their representatives in addition to WGA East for remark.
Woolf has numerous social media accounts, together with Twitter, IG and FB, which had been seen till 8-830 PM Thursday once they had been made non-public. As phrase of the alleged incident began to unfold, Woolf’s social media accounts turned suffering from crucial and generally aggressive feedback earlier than they had been disabled.
In the meantime, writers, sharing Egeston’s “Open Letter To The Man Who Virtually Killed Me On the WGA WGA Picket Line As we speak,” confirmed their resolve and solidarity.
“I’d implore you, in hindsight, to contemplate the ramifications of killing an African-American man within the streets of the town too busy to hate, whereas being the producer of an African-American TV present, created by an African American man, run by an African-American Man,” Egeston wrote in his letter, referring to BMF created by Randy Huggins and government produced by Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, amongst others.
Woolf’s current credit additionally embrace ABC’s Queens; first AD in Netflix’s Bridgerton; Unit manufacturing supervisor on FX’s Mr. Mercedes and CBS’ Prison Minds; Producer of CBS/Paramount+ SEAL Workforce.
