Democratic leaders throughout the liberal state have long been supportive; earlier this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California extended a $330 million-a-year film and television tax credit program to encourage studios to keep productions at home.

Certain communities share a special bond.

“We have a lot of studio people who live in Burbank,” Mimi House, a retired medical clinic administrative worker, said on Thursday while lunching with a group of fellow retirees in the Los Angeles suburb’s “beautiful downtown” shortly after leaders of the actors’ union, known as SAG-AFTRA, announced the walkout.

Without the entertainment industry, Burbank would be a “ghost town,” added Virginia Bohr, a retired accountant at the table with Ms. House. Local officials recently renamed their airport Hollywood Burbank, though Hollywood is technically a neighborhood in Los Angeles, a separate city.

The region has long attracted show business aspirants from around the world who hope to catch their big break. Many scrape by for years before they find work outside the entertainment industry.

Thomas Whaley, a veteran teacher who for 23 years has coordinated an extensive visual and performing arts curriculum at the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, credited the entertainment community for drawing him to the region and helping to ensure the longstanding success of his program, which has become a statewide model for the breadth and quality of its offerings. Were it not for the local concentration of talent, he said, he might never have ended up in the job he has come to cherish.