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Gabrielle Carteris
Gabrielle Carteris was elected president of the International Federation of Actors, or FIA, in May 2021. She is the immediate past president of SAG-AFTRA, where for more than five years she headed the union of 160,000 actors, recording artists, dancers and broadcasters. Before SAG and AFTRA merged in 2012, Carteris served in leadership positions in both unions, as well as on the merger committee.
Carteris became a household name playing Andrea Zuckerman on Beverly Hills, 90210 and more recently starred in BH90210, a revival of the iconic show. Her extensive resume includes work in television, film and the stage, including guest-starring roles on We Own This City, NCIS and Criminal Minds and voice work for video games. Onstage, she performed a special presentation of The Vagina Monologues to raise money to combat violence against women and child abuse. As a producer, Carteris created Lifestories, a series of specials, and Gabrielle, a talk show that she also hosted.
As SAG-AFTRA president during the first several months of the COVID pandemic, she guided the union’s response to create a set of strict industrywide protocols to ensure that sets and other workplaces were as safe as possible. As the head of the President’s Task Force on Education, Outreach and Engagement, she also led efforts to hold regular remote workshops, panels and seminars to keep members connected during the unprecedented disruption to the industry.
A survivor of a serious on-set injury, safety has been a priority initiative for Carteris. She formed the President’s Blue Ribbon Safety Commission, which has advocated for intimacy coordinators to be present on set during the filming of simulated sex scenes and other hyperexposed work. The Commission has also taken concrete steps to confront harassment, make sets safer for stunt performers and establish the COVID safety protocols.
A fierce advocate for diversity, Carteris has taken on age bias in the industry, championed the unionization of Spanish-speaking performers and broadcasters, worked toward gender and pay equity and led efforts to advance greater inclusion in the industry at all levels.
Carteris is a board member of the Solidarity Center, the largest U.S.-based international worker rights organization. Allied with the AFL-CIO, it strives to attain safe and healthy workplaces, fair wages and greater equity. In August 2016, Carteris was elected a vice president on the AFL-CIO’s executive council, re-elected in 2017 and co-leads a sexual harassment workgroup. She also is a founding ambassador of ReFrame, an initiative of Women In Film and Sundance Institute to further gender parity in the media industry. In 2017, Carteris was appointed commissioner to the Hollywood Commission on Eliminating Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality. In addition, she serves as a trustee of the American Film Institute and is a board member of the SAG-AFTRA Foundation.
In 2008, Carteris served the Screen Actors Guild as fifth alternate national director, in 2009 as first alternate national director and in 2010 she began a three-year term as a National Board member. Her previous American Federation of Television and Radio Artists service includes two consecutive terms on the AFTRA Los Angeles Local Board and the AFTRA National Board, three terms as an AFTRA convention delegate in the actor category and, in 2011, she was elected Los Angeles Local president and national second vice president. As part of the Group for One Union, she was instrumental in developing the plan to merge SAG and AFTRA.
She also served SAG-AFTRA during the transition year as national vice president, Los Angeles. In 2019, SAG-AFTRA presented Carteris with the George Heller Memorial Award for her years of union service.
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