HOLLYWOOD -- In acting as in comedy, timing is everything.

And timing is the operative word for the Screen Actors Guild as it weighs the pros and cons of calling a strike in the current economic climate.

Back at the end of June, when the SAG contract with producers expired after months of fruitless negotiations, the threat of a work stoppage might have seemed like a good bit of leverage to have in the back pocket.

After all, like the Writers Guild of America, whose strike all but shut down Hollywood for several months, SAG's main concern wasn't over the upper-tier superstars, but the majority of members who struggle to eke out a living that often barely clears the poverty line.

But the SAG National Board's plan to hold a referendum on strike action has caused a rift within its own ranks, with the New York sector opposing such a vote in light of said economy.

They want SAG to scrap plans to mail out 100,000 strike authorization ballots to members on Jan. 2.

According to the current timetable, those votes would be tabulated by Jan. 23, which, if approved by 75% of membership, could pave the way for a strike just ahead of the Feb. 22 Oscar ceremony.

In normal circumstances, the threat of an Oscar shut-down would be viewed as a shrewd negotiating tactic (as demonstrated by the WGA earlier this year), but with networks already feeling an advertising pinch and laying off hundreds of staffers, such a move would unlikely generate much public goodwill.

Besides, a strike would deprive all those starving thesps of landing one of those swell, career-making opportunities recently in the offing.

Such as ... that Nip/Tuck casting call looking for "very overweight males --nudity required" to appear in a comedic scene in which "you deter a female friend of yours from a nudist colony from getting lipo surgery."

Even if you didn't land the gig, you still got paid for an interview with director Eric Stoltz, and who knows where that might lead?

Or how about a big-time feature film, such as College Years, a comedy in the market for "guys to be wrapped up in cellophane" or something more serious such as Sympathy for Delicious, marking the directorial debut of Mark Ruffalo and starring Ruffalo, James Franco and Juliet Lewis.

They were looking for people with actual disabilities "or special abilities to look injured or distorted."

Warrior, another movie, needed tough Hispanic gang bangers for a jail cell sequence ("Tattoos a plus"), as well as a talented individual to play a "high-class drunk" pulled over for driving under the influence.

Not anyone is capable of conveying the subtleties in portraying a bourgeois boozer.

And let's not forget that Numb3rs call urgently looking for impersonators you'd find in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre, i.e. Marilyn Monroe, Batman and Charlie Chaplin, with the stipulation that "you must have the complete outfit!"

So, come on SAG president Alan Rosenberg, we know your intentions are honourable, but given these trying times, it's probably advisable to reconsider those strike authorization plans and save the postage.

Marilyn needs new shoes.

Michael Rechtshaffen, a Canadian entertainment writer based in Los Angeles, appears Wednesdays and Sundays