Los Angeles, CA—As a long time member of the, Screen Actor’s Guild, I’m watching the movement toward an actor’s strike. In Los Angeles acting is a tough game. Unless you are closely related to, sleeping with or have decapitated some Hollywood big shot's prize horse and put put that trophy in his bed your chances of making a decent living are really slim.
It’s the agents who control who does or does not work. For the unemployed or underemployed actors there are auditions with endless driving, waiting and all manner of roadblocks. For example you must pay for your own parking during auditions. Hundreds of actors are submitted to producers for nearly every single role.
I know may actors that are lucky to get five tiny parts in an entire year. For that they are compensated at $759.00 per day for speaking roles. The Internet and related new media threatens actors on any residuals. The Internet has no control and actor’s products are subject to perpetual play.
Yes there are a small percentage of actors that are multi-millionaires That’s not a reason to not pay the lesser exposed actors who after all make these films possible.
Actors I know are always one step-ahead of the bill collectors, landlords and starvation as they live hand to mouth. Too many of these SAG members are reduced to prostituting their services to non-union producers just to eat. Too many lives have been shattered on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams by poverty.
Even during these hard times I’m in favor of a strike. Entertainment always has done well even during the Great Depression. With a zero percent interest rate investing in movies seems less risky and handsome returns can still be made. To the producers I say Pay up or do without.
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