As head of the actors guild, Sean Astin brings a little Rudy, a little Samwise, and a lot of fight

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Sean Astin has taken on the presidency of the SAG-AFTRA at a particularly perilous time for the actors union, and for Hollywood. There's the threat of human actors being replaced by artificial intelligence. The ongoing upheavals of streaming. Studio consolidation and realignment.

Nearly three years ago, the actors launched a four-month strike, securing some protections and higher wages. And on Monday, negotiations on a new three-year contract with studio and streamers are already beginning again.

So what actor would want this role?

“In my imagination, growing up, I would want to have been in a place of consequence,” he told The Associated Press in an interview in his office at the guild's Los Angeles headquarters. “And so to have the opportunity to be in a role, leading a union of 160,000 people at this moment of consequence when there’s turmoil, when there’s fear and uncertainty and danger, this is exactly where I want to be.”

Astin, an elected board member during the strike who left his mark as a fiery rally speaker, won the presidency in September, replacing the outgoing Fran Drescher.

As an actor, the now-54-year-old is known as the leader of a scrappy band of kids in 1985's “The Goonies,” an aspiring football player with never-ending grit in 1993's “Rudy,” and Samwise Gamgee, Frodo Baggins' steadfast bestie in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

He's a SAG lifer, becoming a member as a young boy in 1981. His mother, Oscar winner Patty Duke, who died in 2016, was president of the guild from 1985 to 1988, before it added the -AFTRA in a 2012 merger.

His father, John Astin, now 95, is best known for playing Gomez on “The Addams Family.” His brother Mackenzie Astin is a child star turned journeyman actor who recently had a three-episode arc on “The Pitt.”

Sean Astin said he hopes to get actors like his brother, who rely heavily on small ongoing payments for guest roles, to have streaming residuals pay as well as they do for broadcast TV.

“I can’t wait to be at a Thanksgiving or a Christmas with him and nudge him and say, ‘Hey, how’s your residuals doing?’” he said.

Astin said he has reason to believe the new talks won't start with actors and their employers at each other's throats.

“They came in last time provoking the fight,” he said, referring to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. “They wanted the strike. No question in my mind. I was in those rooms every single day. They’re sending much different signals now. They’re sending signals of wanting stability, of wanting to work as partners again.”

The AMPTP said in a statement to the AP that the group representing studios and streamers looked “forward to working collaboratively with our partners at SAG-AFTRA as we commence formal bargaining.”

“By taking the time to thoughtfully engage on the challenges confronting our industry, we are optimistic that, together, we can reach a fair deal that reflects our shared commitment to supporting our industry’s talented performers and promoting long-term stability,” the statement said.

Astin said the guild won't yield any of the ground it won in 2023, whether it be wage increases or requiring informed consent for the use of actors' likenesses via AI. and that means they can’t disarm in advance -- striking is not out of the question, whatever the lingering pains from last time.

“There’s only one real tool available to a labor union in a negotiation, and that’s saying no,” Astin said. “We reserve the right to say no again if we need to.”

On March 1, the guild will hold the world's most glamorous union meeting, the newly renamed Actor Awards, where high-profile members like Leonardo DiCaprio and Emma Stone are nominated. But the vast majority of acting members don't even make the approximately $27,000 a year required to qualify for guild health insurance. And Astin represents the guild's full membership — including video game actors, puppeteers, broadcast journalists and TV announcers. He's spent much of his time since his election — and plenty before that — learning the specific concerns of, for example, stunt drivers or actors who live in Minnesota or New Mexico.

“I will say to everybody, I’m gonna fight as hard for you as anybody has ever fought for you, for your issue,” he said. “People say, ‘You can’t fight for everybody equally.’ I say, ‘Yes, I can.’”

A speech Samwise gives in “The Two Towers” — “There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for” — became an Astin rallying cry during the strike.

He said that he can also draw from his other characters for traits he ought to embody now.

“The qualities that make Rudy special — determination, grit, inspiration, aspiration — whatever is a part of that thing that makes him, makes his story touch the lives of so many people, is the part of myself that I want to pour into this job on behalf of my members,” he said.

And then there's Mikey from “The Goonies.”

“If you think of ‘The Goonies,’ ‘The Goonies’ is about saving their home,” he said. “It’s fun, there’s a pirate ship, but it’s about a group of friends who don’t want to be overtaken by industrialists. Maybe that’s the most important one.”

SAG-AFTRA president Sean Astin shows off a finished solid bronze Actor statuette during the 32nd Actor Awards statuette pouring event presented by SAG-AFTRA on Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026, at American Fine Arts Foundry in Burbank, Calif. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

SAG-AFTRA president Sean Astin shows off a finished solid bronze Actor statuette during the 32nd Actor Awards statuette pouring event presented by SAG-AFTRA on Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026, at American Fine Arts Foundry in Burbank, Calif. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

SAG-AFTRA president Sean Astin poses for a portrait at his office in Los Angeles on Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

SAG-AFTRA president Sean Astin poses for a portrait at his office in Los Angeles on Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

SAG-AFTRA president Sean Astin poses for a portrait at his office in Los Angeles on Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

ROME (AP) — The Vatican has given the green light, again, to beatify Archbishop Fulton Sheen, the popular U.S. radio and TV preacher whose path to sainthood was derailed first by a lengthy court battle over his remains and then by concerns about how he handled clergy sexual misconduct cases.

After a rare six-year delay to investigate the concerns, Sheen's beatification can now take place in Peoria, Ill., as originally planned, the Peoria diocese announced Monday.

No new date for the ceremony, the last major step before possible sainthood, was immediately announced. But the Vatican's approval now sets the stage for the Illinois-born Sheen to be beatified during the pontificate of the Illinois-born Pope Leo XIV.

“The Holy See has informed me that the cause for the Venerable Servant of God Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen can proceed to beatification," Peoria Bishop Louis Tylka said in a written and video statement on the websites of the diocese and the Sheen foundation. “We are working with the Dicastery of the Causes of Saints at the Vatican to determine the details for the upcoming beatification.”

Sheen was an enormously effective evangelizer in the 20th century U.S. church, who in some ways pioneered televangelism with his 1950s television series, “Life is Worth Living.” According to Catholic University of America, where he studied and taught before he was made a bishop, Sheen won an Emmy Award, was featured on the cover of Time Magazine "and became one of the most influential Catholics of the 20th century.”

Pope Francis had confirmed a miracle attributed to Sheen’s intercession on July 6, 2019 and had set his beatification for Dec. 21 that year in Peoria. But with less than three weeks’ notice, the Vatican postponed the ceremony indefinitely.

It acted after the diocese of Rochester, N.Y., where Sheen served as bishop from 1966-1969, asked for further investigation into Sheen’s tenure and “his role in priests’ assignments.”

The concerns focused on Sheen’s handling of two cases of priests accused of sexual misconduct. Sheen was never accused of abuse himself. A top canonical affairs official from Peoria, Monsignor James Kruse, said in 2019 that an investigation had cleared Sheen of any wrongdoing. Kruse later complained that the Rochester diocese was “sabotaging” the cause, writing a lengthy essay that had been posted on the official Sheen beatification site but later taken down.

Peoria Bishop Tylka's statement made no reference to the concerns that prompted the delay in 2019.

The 2019 investigation was the latest obstacle to hinder Sheen’s cause, coming after an expensive, years-long legal battle between Sheen’s relatives in Peoria and the New York City archdiocese over his final resting place.

Sheen, who died in 1979, was interred under the altar of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. His remains were returned to Peoria in 2019 after a court ruled Sheen’s niece could bury him there.

Among those celebrating the Vatican's new green light to beatify Sheen was The Pontifical Missions Societies in the U.S., the Vatican's main missionary fundraising office in the U.S., which Sheen headed from 1950-1966. Sheen left most of his patrimony, including writings and audio recordings, to the organization, which raises money for the Catholic Church in Africa, Asia, Latin America and other mission areas.

"It is profoundly moving that, in God’s providence, the first U.S.–born pope is able to advance the cause of his fellow Illinois native, the most iconic evangelizer ever produced by the American Church,” Monsignor Roger Landry, national director of the office, said in a statement.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Pope Leo XIV appears at his studio window to deliver the traditional Sunday blessing to faithful and pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican for the noon Angelus prayer, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Pope Leo XIV appears at his studio window to deliver the traditional Sunday blessing to faithful and pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican for the noon Angelus prayer, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

FILE - This Oct. 26, 1966 file photo shows Bishop Fulton J. Sheen in his office at the Propagation of Faith in New York. (AP Photo/Eddie Adams, file)