For many years in Hollywood there was an invisible, unspoken, unwritten agreement between studios and performers: one in which actors would live a high-risk, high-reward lifestyle; and in exchange for living an irregular lifestyle with no guarantees, the studios would make living that lifestyle a sustainable one for actors.
An actor's life is a very unstructured one, a life often spontaneous and erratic. You can have no schedule but then suddenly be incredibly busy. An actor will devote their lives to running around town doing auditions and if they're not running around town, they're doing self-tapes at home or recording in their home booth - requiring equipment that the actor has to buy and set up themselves.
I should mention at this point: this is all done for free. Actors (usually) aren't paid for this. This is just the effort one must put in to get a gig. The work required to get the work; where you're competing against dozens or even hundreds of others all chasing after the same opportunity as you.
Then for the actual gig itself, much still can be demanded of you: traveling, working long/awkward hours, memorizing lines, meeting physical requirements, researching a role and/or having to prepare on very short notice.
You need to be fairly flexible to be able to accommodate to a life of, “Oh hey, we need you tomorrow” or just suddenly working for a few days/weeks and then not working, and then working a few more days/weeks and then not again.
Doing all this is incredibly difficult if you also have a full-time job, heck even a part-time job. It’s not very feasible and a number of actors actually somehow manage to do this, despite it seeming impossible.
You often have to devote your life and free time to be able to do this BUT if you are selected, if you do get the gig… you are compensated well. You are paid well for your time and even beyond that, paid for your work being used and enjoyed by the masses again and again and again. If a show or movie succeeds, the actor succeeds. This allows an actor to survive the ebb and flow nature of this industry.
Yes, to the average person, the hourly rates or daily rates will sound big, huge perhaps. But it's not forever and it’s not guaranteed work… and not everything will be a massive hit. As soon as you're done with that job, you'll be back to the grind, endeavoring frantically without pay to get the next one.
But it's not just that actors need flexibility and to live this crazy lifestyle to get the work… THE INDUSTRY NEEDS this of us, they NEED hundreds of people to be living this lifestyle.
Let me explain with an example: picture a crime drama, the type of thing where in each episode a person is murdered, there's a group of suspects and then detectives (the main characters) solve the case and pin down the criminal. Something like that would have a dozen or two dozen episodes a year. In a show like that you need to have a different murderer each episode, you need to have a different group of suspects each episode, you need to have a different victim each episode - seriously, think about it, you can't have an actor die one week and then just have them play someone else the next week, the audience would notice. Maybe a few years later they can play another role but definitely not immediately. The show needs to find a new actor for the new role and the actor needs to find a new gig. For a show like that to work, you NEED to have dozens and dozens of actors come in… and that's just for one show. You NEED to have a waiter giving the main characters their food in the restaurant scene, you need to have the boss who fires the main character at the start of the movie which then sparks the adventure they then go on, you need to have the police officer pull over the main character when he's suspected of drink-driving… and all those roles REQUIRE actors living this crazy lifestyle to be available to do it. It goes both ways.
And this is all just for actors, this doesn't get into the writers who have to write all those episodes, the directors who direct them all, the camera crew filming it, audio crew recording it, costume design making the outfits, stunt choreographers and performers fleshing out the action and the bajillion other people doing a bajillion other things who help create our entertainment. (But I best know actors so for today I'm talking about them).
In terms of payment and in terms of making this lifestyle a viable one, there is a factoring in for all the inconsistency and uncertainty of an actor's life and - at least when they book the gig - they are rewarded for it…
At least… they WERE rewarded for it. Sadly nowadays, not so much. The goal posts have been moved and this career is becoming a less and less sustainable one.
There has been a shift in how we consume media. Nowadays we don't just watch broadcast television or go to the cinema but we now also enjoy media through streaming as well… and with that shift comes less compensation for the actor.
But the thing is… the actor is still working just as hard as ever and is still expected to live this frantic lifestyle… but they will make far less money for doing it.
And then the other thing as well is that we're not making less content… we’re still getting all those hours of television and all those movies and the studios are still making HUGE amounts of money, oftentimes RECORD PROFITS. People are still consuming media - there are still smash hit shows and movies that we all watch and we all talk about. It's just the way that we consume them that has changed. Instead of paying for a ticket or tuning in at a particular time, you're paying a subscription. The money is still there…. But it's being distributed VERY differently than before.
That invisible, unspoken, unwritten agreement has been broken by the studios and the greedy executives who have successfully been able to squeeze every last drop from their actors (and their writers, and the show creators and more) and aren't willing to give up just a tiny fraction of their insane profits.
I really can't emphasize this enough but what actors and writers are asking for is only a tiny fraction of what the extortionate amounts that the people at the very top make. If there are people with eight figure and nine figure salaries, you can come up with a new pay model that allows actors and creatives to be able to survive making all that money for them.
All actors want is to be able to do what we love and to be able to live comfortably doing it. We're prepared to live this crazy lifestyle that is expected of us by the studios but it HAS TO BE SUSTAINABLE. It was before and it can be again. But it's down to the studios to make that happen. It’s time for the studios to once again hold up their end of this invisible, unspoken and unwritten agreement.
(And this is without me even beginning to go into the whole AI thing)