Screen_Actors_Guild The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide. According to SAG's Mission Statement, the Guild seeks toThe Guild was founded in 1933 in an effort to eliminate exploitation of actors in Hollywood who were being forced into oppressive multi-year contracts with the major movie studios that did not include restrictions on work hours or minimum rest periods, and often had clauses that automatically renewed at the studios' discretion.