I am curious if actors are told before auditioning that their character will not make it to the end (assuming the showrunners know the arc for that character)?
I do not mean a temp actor coming in for one show.
I mean an actor who is hired as a lead (or at least major) role.
For example (and what prompted this question) is Game of Thrones. It is notorious for knocking off main characters. Characters that most people would think had the plot armor to make it to the end.
So, is actor-X told when they are hired that they WILL die in season three or do they have to wait till the season 3 script to learn they are out a job?
Generally yes.
Someone auditioning for the role of Ned Stark or Robert Baratheon must have known both would be dead before the end of the first season.
The actor playing Roose Bolton, not so much, as he is still alive in the books.
Sometimes it’s a (nasty) surprise, the actor playing Barristan Selmy found out minutes before he was to shoot the scene.
I think they must generally have a good idea. If the producers know that they’re going to use the character for several seasons, they’d want the actor to commit to performing for that many seasons. And by the same principle, there’s no point in having an actor sign a contract for five seasons if you’re planning on killing off the character after two.
Look, Game of Thrones spoilers are bad enough in a thread about Game of Thrones. They’re even worse in threads on other topics (even if it’s a topic that naturally overlaps with GoT). And we’ve just had to remind folks (yet again) about spoilers for that specific work.
If it’s a spoiler, put it in a spoiler box. It isn’t complicated.
No spoilers here, but Walking Dead does not always fill people in very well.
I can think of at least one actor who was very made when his/her character was killed. The actor was told with very little notice and was on the show for quite awhile. Actor was furious. Others have been told with a few episodes heads-up, but not much.
I believe one or two actors on that show now have “get paid even if your character dies” contracts that allow them to get the season salary even if they die on the show. I kinda figure they won’t kill anyone in that kind of contract, but they can.
Often the producers don’t know who the’ll kill off in a run.
Other times it’s obvious they will kill someone off. House of Cards had a “shocking” death in the second season that anyone who saw the original was saying, “What took them so long?”
It usually doesn’t matter to the actor’s performance.
Conversely, if an actor is given a bit role, but much later it turns out to be much more important, do they inform the actor of that? Take Paul Bettany’s role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In 2008 he has this little voice-over role as Jarvis in Iron Man. You could literally phone it in.
Do they inform him that if everything goes as planned in 2015 he’s got an onscreen presence in The Age of Ultron with three other movies to follow? It’s hard to believe Marvel knew this would all take place; given the track record of comic book movies, which had been spotty until Iron Man.
Did Marvel just get lucky in their choice of voice actor? They could have ended up with someone completely unsuitable for onscreen work. Of course, it would have been fairly easy to have swapped Jarvis out before Vision shows up, but they didn’t have to do it.
It wasn’t a bit role, but Breaking Bad Jesse Pinkman was supposed to have been killed off in the first season. They liked Aaron Paul’s performance so much they decided to keep him for the rest of the series.
Virtually any show is too uncertain to be sure of how long an actor will last in a role. I doubt anyone is told how long the character will last when auditioning, because they don’t even know that the show will last. They don’t know if the pilot will be picked up, they don’t know if the first season will be successful enough so that additional seasons will be ordered, and, when producing original material, they aren’t sure which way the plot will eventually go. Even at the beginning of a season, they may not know which characters they will kill off. From the commentary on Breaking Bad, Vince Gilliam and the other writers often only had the plot worked out a few episodes in advance.
Take for example Game of Thrones. The original pilot was considered a disaster. They ended up reshooting much of the episode, and recast Danaerys and Catelyn. Several minor roles were also recast. I’m sure actor’s contracts must allow for recasting, as well as the possibility their character may be killed off at some point.
As for when actors are informed, it varies. Sometimes they know at the beginning of the season. (When a show is based on a book or other non-original material, of course they can find out what happens to their character.) From commentary on Mad Men, one of the actors whose role ended said he was grateful that they informed him a few episodes in advance.
I think one of the more famous ones is Jamie Farr as Klinger in MASH. He was only supposed to be in one episode and made it into the entire 11 year run. He talks about it in one of the retrospective specials.
An inverse example is Michelle Forbes, who played Ensign Ro on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Ro’s first episode ended with her apparently agreeing to become part of the Enterprise’s regular crew; Forbes however was surprised when the show invited her back, as she hadn’t realized (or been made sufficiently aware) she was playing anything other than a one-off role.
There’s more to acting than TV or films. The whole basis of the business is uncertainty and short-term gigs that just might, if they’re lucky, get them noticed and established and/or turn into a long run. And even if they are lucky, they need to be careful not to push their luck and get a reputation for “being difficult”.
I think in Hill Street Blues’ first season, if not the pilot, Charles Haid (Andy Renko) and Michael Warren (Bobby Hill) were supposed to die, but they proved to be so popular that their deaths were changed to serious injuries.
If you’re Sean Bean, you can pretty much assume your character is going to die… he dies so much that leaving his character alive at the end of the movie / season counts as lampshading.