It's been a while since my last posting. I'm happy to say that things have been busy for me. I was cast in a new play (which had a staged reading a few weeks ago), a short film, and this weekend I'll be acting in a trailer for another short film. I'm also revising my latest script ("Nice Guys Finish Last") which I'm happy to say is nearing the end of its development process. Last week I attended Vanity Fair's 2013 Tribeca Film Festival party and got to rub elbows with acting legends like Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken.
The point of all this work is to make an income, and so I thought a good topic for today's blog should be Why Actors Get Paid.
The business of acting has huge supply and demand problems, and from an actor's point of view the numbers are not in your favor. For every role that goes out, there are literally thousands of talented actors that are willing to do it for free to advance their career. So with all this free talent floating around, why would a producer pay anything at all? Two reasons:
1) Your Marketing Value. Producers need to sell tickets. They need to fill seats. You can produce the best film in the world, but if it's marketed poorly, you won't make a dime. One of the best marketing tools a producer can employ is casting a well known actor. Actor's like Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise have huge fan-bases. When they star in a new movie, millions of fans will flock to the theaters and buy a ticket. That's why these guys can command their $20 million+ salaries.
But this works on a smaller scale too. Producers also need their films reviewed by critics and seen by industry executives. Contrary to what you might think, the press does not review everything that's submitted to them. It's actually just the opposite. They're very selective. But casting a up and coming young actor can get their attention. So suppose you don't yet have a fan-base, but you've won a few minor awards and your work's been generating a lot of buzz in the industry. Critics and studio heads are mildly curious about your work. That's an extremely valuable commodity for an actor to have, and producers will pay well for it.
So how does one develop market value? Or a fan-base? Well... ultimately it boils down to talent. Which is why it's so important for an actor to master their craft. It's not enough to be "above average." You have to excel. You have to be among the very best. Movie stars have fan-bases because at some point in their careers they did some incredible work. Their "break out" role. And people enjoyed it so much they're willing to pay money to see them again.
But what if you're just starting out, and you're name doesn't have any marketing value? Shouldn't you get paid too? Of course you should, and that brings us to the second reason why actor's get paid:
2) Unions. Every actor should get down and thank God that unions exists. Because without them most of us wouldn't get paid a dime. It's a cut-throat business and producers have to be very tight with how they spend money. If they could get away with hiring actors for free, they'd probably do it. If you don't believe me, just look at all the non-union work that pays nothing. Unions require producers to pay us a fair rate, and since all the big name actors are union, any production that wants to hire them needs to be union as well.
This is why it's so important for actors to join the union. It's nearly impossible to make a living if you don't.
