Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Aniston, Noah Wyle and Leonardo DiCaprio are just a few of the high-profile stars who have endorsed the strike by the Screen Actors Guild (SAG).

In place since May, the dispute centres on plans by the advertising industry to scrap royalties being paid to actors every time a commercial is aired on network TV. For ads on cable TV, actors are paid a flat rate and advertisers want to extend this system to network TV advertising.

Speaking recently on a picket line outside Universal Studios, where a commercial was being filmed, ER’s Noah Wyle said he hoped his attendance, ‘will bring some more attention to the strike and get 150,000 unemployed people back to work… I mean, five years ago, this is where I was at,’ he said. ‘These people are hard-working. They don’t make great livings as it is, and they’re not making any living now.’

Martin Sheen was full of fighting talk: ‘I’m here because my union is on strike and I’m supporting them,’ he declared. ‘We’ve got to make it clear – to the producers, to corporate America – that if they want to destroy the union, they’re going to have to destroy all of us.’

Teletext reports that Sheen, Susan Sarandon and Paul Newman are expected to make appearances on TV chat shows to publicly pledge their support.