Is Acting Only for the Rich? Here’s What You Need to Know
At the height of the actors’ strike, members of the Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG/AFTRA), the best-known labor union for performers in television and recorded media, provided some much-needed context for an important national conversation.
Countering clichés about actors’ “rich” and glamorous lifestyles as the subject of their salaries loomed large, the union laid down the facts: The median actor’s salary in the United States was less than $47,000 a year in 2021. More than four-fifths of working actors don’t make even enough money to meet the minimum earnings threshold to benefit from union-supported insurance. One recent study found that 90 percent of actors are unemployed at any given point in the year.
William Sanford Davis, best known as Mr. Johnson on Abbot Elementary noted that, in the more than three decades he’s been a SAG-AFTRA member, he has never received a salary increase. A video he shared on social media showed Davis holding up one of his recent residual checks—for just three cents.
Technology and Greed Threaten Livelihoods
That’s why SAG/AFTRA members went on strike's. After the Writers Guild of America (WGA) went on strike in May 2023, SAG/AFTRA members joined in solidarity, and based on their own interests. Both groups’ earnings took a plunge with the development of the streaming services that minimized their residuals. Also a threat were the artificial intelligence applications threatening to replace video and voice actors with simulations. For TV and film writers and actors, these developments would interfere with a major part of their livelihoods.
The strike by the members of the WGA ended at the end of September, with a conclusion that largely satisfied writers looking for better pay and higher residuals connected with streaming services. But as of the beginning of October, the actors’ strike remained unresolved.
The actors and writers have painted studio executives—justifiably—as focused on their shareholders, their profits, and their own salaries rather than fairly compensating the very creative people on whose work their profits depend. Fran Drescher, the “Nanny” herself, noted early in the actors’ strike that the entire working world for creative people in Hollywood has been upended by streaming, digital media, and the encroach of AI. Drescher remarked that she couldn’t understand why “people don’t just do the right thing.”
The Hard Work of Acting
Actors deserve to work for people who do the right thing. Their work is a craft, and to hone it they must train constantly. Whether that’s taking (usually expensive) classes, doing sometimes painful emotional work with coaches or counselors, memorizing hundreds of pages of dialogue, or working late into the night to get the 20th or 30th or 100th take right, there’s considerably more going on behind the scenes than non-thespians think about. And they keep showing up to audition after audition, even after rejection after rejection.
So is it only the independently wealthy who should have a chance to break into acting while being able to eat three meals a day?
It depends. Most insiders define a “working actor" as someone who books several paid acting gigs every year. Many working actors fill in their financial gaps with additional part-time jobs and gig work. If you can do this successfully, you at least stand a chance of paying basic bills. Actors also must save and invest the money they earn, putting away a robust emergency fund for the inevitable gaps in work that are a part of being in an industry in which jobs depend on a strong economy and the whims of a fickle public.
That kind of lifestyle is obviously easier to maintain when you’re single. For an actor who has dependents (a spouse, kids, aging parents) the problem is exponentially bigger. Ditto if they or their loved ones have a disability. It’s also an issue for actors who are trying to complete their educations while working.
Gig Life
Aside from the unfair practices of the studios, a big part of the systemic problem is today’s gig economy. According to an acting coach writing in Backstage magazine, you don’t have to rely on waiting tables. There’s a wide range of gig jobs out there that can help actors make ends meet, like dog-walkers, taskers, and delivery and rideshare drivers among the most often-resorted-to. While these jobs offer flexible hours and minimal commitment, they come with plenty of downsides.
For example, gig workers are responsible for tracking and filing their own income tax payments, and for paying for any of their own necessary licensing. They’re also in competition with growing numbers of others trying to make ends meet doing the same jobs and flooding the local labor market. Additionally, they aren’t usually eligible for the benefits that come with traditional employment: health insurance, unemployment insurance, and tax-advantaged retirement savings through an employer being at the top of the list.
Gig jobs can also be extremely stressful, just in a different way than acting. Rideshare drivers—especially women and BIPOC—are vulnerable to all kinds of physical and verbal abuse if the wrong passenger decides to make trouble. It’s got to take a toll, the uncertainty whether you’re about to let anyone from an entitled verbal abuser to a violent racist or misogynist into your car with every new stop.
Because working under the gig economy also makes it difficult to make ends meet, there is less time to devote to the craft. This means auditions are less likely to be successful, and it can be the beginning of a downward spiral unless you are very vigilant. For many established actors, this can even make it difficult to continue to obtain work. The details regarding residuals are one aspect of these contracts that needs to be resolved in negotiations. Many are waiting with bated breath to hear the results.