Ethan Lawrence: Brain drain threatens film and TV, says actor

“My concern is that when these people go, they’re not coming back,” Ethan says.

He gives an example of a gaffer he’d worked with – whose role it is to manage lighting – who had more than 30 years’ experience.

“He was quitting because he literally couldn’t afford to do it anymore.

“And so we risk a significant brain drain in the creative space, which should be a concern for people.”

For Ethan, the issues facing the entertainment industry is a “comedy of errors”.

“So many things went wrong all at the same time,” he says.

As well as the strikes across the Atlantic, he says he’s still feeling the impact of the Covid pandemic and Brexit, saying there are fewer opportunities for British workers to pick up jobs in Europe.

“If we now want to work on the continent – where you’d get quite a lot of advertising work if you’re a UK citizen – they now have to pay for your visa, which they’re less willing to do,” he explains.

“So they’ll just work with people on the continent, which is fair enough.

“And the problem is that the vast majority of us working in this space are self-employed,” Ethan says, so when work does dry up workers like him simply don’t get paid.