One strike in Hollywood is rare enough—now the town is bracing for two. As writers enter their 10th week on picket lines, actors are hurtling toward their July 12 deadline to negotiate a new contract with Hollywood studios, and it’s looking increasingly possible that they’ll collectively take a giant step out of the spotlight.

“It feels like actors are already raring to go,” says one successful television actor, who notes that many fellow performers have gotten a taste for the strike life while out marching with writers on their picket lines. Several have already signed up to be strike captains as the industry contemplates the first double strike in 63 years.

SAG-AFTRA began preparing its members for a potential work stoppage last week when it sent out an email asking them to fill out a survey “about if and how you’d like to volunteer” in the event of a strike. The questions were extremely specific: What time would you like to picket? Would you be interested in volunteering as a strike captain? It’s entirely possible that it was due diligence or a last-minute bluff, but ready-to-strike actor Mehdi Barakchian was thrilled: “I think they’re preparing.” The guild also posted on Instagram a bunch of photos of people making “SAG-AFTRA on Strike!” picket signs, with the caption, “If a strike becomes necessary, we’re ready.” Sources say that SAG-AFTRA has started training its first round of strike captains to be at the ready.

The guild held meetings with entertainment publicists and agents on Monday to discuss how a possible actors strike would impact them and their affected clients. They were told that, in addition to having to walk away from television and film productions around the world, striking SAG-AFTRA members would be forbidden from doing any publicity, including interviews, photo shoots, premieres, and social media that promotes studio projects. Some agreements would be permitted for truly independent projects, and performers would be allowed to appear at events like Comic-Con for career-related panels that don’t promote a current project. Charity events and the receipt of lifetime achievement awards would also be permissible, as long as actors aren’t photographed in front of corporate logos on the red carpet. The guild told the publicists in no uncertain terms: Do not put clients in a position where they have to defend what they’re doing publicly.

Since the start of the WGA strike, there had been some confusion among members about what was and wasn’t allowed in terms of publicity, social media, and red-carpet appearances. “It was very unorganized,” says one publicist, who notes the “more aggressive approach” SAG-AFTRA is taking. As an industry source points out, the guild clearly hopes to make the actors’ absence felt so profoundly that it makes the studios rethink their position: “The whole point of making the rules so stringent is so that the strike ends earlier.”

Over the past week, rumors that negotiations have been going badly have grown louder and louder. Though SAG-AFTRA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have pledged not to speak publicly about their negotiations, word has started to trickle out from behind the closed doors of the AMPTP’s Sherman Oaks headquarters that the two sides are a world apart on several key issues, including placing limitations on the use of AI. Entertainment labor lawyer Jonathan Handel, who previously worked with SAG-AFTRA but no longer represents them and isn’t speaking on their behalf, says that there are two factions within the guild, one more strike-oriented than the other. “But from both sides of the aisle, what I’ve been hearing is that we’re likely going to get a strike,” he says. “There’s distance between the parties on at least several issues.”

SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher, the cocreator and star of the 1990s sitcom The Nanny, boasted at the end of June that she would reach “a seminal deal” on behalf of members. It seems clear now that that was extremely optimistic. Drescher is seemingly now frustrated with the lack of movement from the AMPTP: In spite of her positive public demeanor, Drescher, who has served in her union leadership role for less than two years, “has been an enlightening, surprisingly strong leader of negotiations,” according to a dispatch from The Ankler’s daily strike newsletter. Some guild members were disappointed with Drescher herself this week after Kim Kardashian posted an Instagram photo of herself alongside Drescher at a Dolce & Gabbana promotional event in Italy. Although it felt to some like a “let them eat cake” moment—and Kardashian’s show American Horror Story is a particularly sensitive one for writers already on strike—SAG-AFTRA issued a statement explaining that Drescher’s work as a brand ambassador for Dolce & Gabbana required her to travel, and that she had been able to access the talks by videoconference when necessary. “This was a commitment fully known to the negotiating committee.”

There’s no doubt that the contract talks are grueling. Drescher and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland are going toe-to-toe with Carol Lombardini, the low-profile but famously tough negotiator who has worked for the AMPTP for more than 40 years, serving as its president since 2009. The former lawyer represents more than 350 Hollywood producers, including Netflix, Disney, and Warner Bros. Discovery. Keeping all these AMPTP members in line—and getting them to eventually agree on all terms—is a thorny job. “It’s a difficult dynamic,” Handel says. “Even the things that get [officially] agreed to in the room don’t really get agreed to in the room as a whole, because you’ve got a hundred people or more in the room. They have sidebars where there are two or three people, maybe, from each side, chatting separately.”

At the beginning of the summer, an actors strike seemed about as improbable as a second season of The Idol. Members of SAG-AFTRA voted overwhelmingly in favor of authorizing a work stoppage—not surprising since they want their leaders to be empowered—but they haven’t gone on strike against the AMPTP in 43 years. And though Drescher was marching alongside writers, she was also saying that the actors’ contract negotiations would be “very different” than the ones that led the Writers Guild of America to strike.

But pressure has been mounting on Drescher—the negotiation deadline has already been pushed back 12 days from the original June 30 contract expiration—to walk away if she isn’t able to deliver on her promise. As the clock ticked down on the original deadline, more than 1,000 actors, including A-listers like Meryl Streep, Bob Odenkirk, and Lena Waithe, signed a letter to SAG-AFTRA leaders urging them not to “meet in the middle.” Actors haven’t been shy about showing up to the picket lines to show their support for the WGA and send a message to Drescher and Crabtree-Ireland that they’re ready for a fight. Mark Ruffalo, Kerry Washington, and Cynthia Nixon have all been spotted marching since the writers strike began May 2.

The fall season of television is already imperiled by the current labor action. An actors strike, says Handel, “would probably be the nail in the coffin” for the Emmys, which are scheduled for September. And having two guilds out picketing on the streets of America’s major cities would be mutually reinforcing, he continues, creating “a shock-and-awe factor.”

Although SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP have until midnight on July 12 to reach a deal, there’s a growing acceptance that a strike might be next on the call sheet. “This is a big moment not only for artists and for the entertainment industry, but for the labor movement at large,” says the successful TV actor, who sees many of his colleagues struggling to make ends meet. “I think that SAG is taking a bit of a harder line than they have in the past, because they came to the table prepared to get a better deal than they have in the past.” Work has already dried up due to many of America’s TV and film productions being shut down by the writers strike, leaving actors with plenty of time to contemplate how much their paychecks have shrunk in the streaming era. Like many actors, he sees this as a turning point for the profession: “What is there to lose?”