first, some examples:
so basically actors who have been in a fair number of movies, maybe one or two feature films as a lead, guest roles on TV episodes, etc.
what kind of lifestyle would they live: living in a 1.5 million dollar house in beverly hills, don’t really need to work but just do it because they have nothing better to do, or do they live a general upper middle-class lifestyle like a generic VP, doctor, lawyer, etc. (and basically need to work to pay the bills)
change that 1.5 million to like 3 million or something a little more accurate
It’s almost certainly going to vary from actor to actor. Deforest Kelley lived in a modest house.
Two films as a lead? Thats not a bit player in my book. Generally, leads get a percentage of the income the movie makes. So if a guy who made a modest living in television got to be a lead in a successful move, he could go from making 200k a year to 2 million.
It would depend strongly on how the residual situation is. Someone in an ad that runs all the time will do very well, as will someone who has a small continuing role on a series heavily syndicated. It also depends on how good an agent the guy has. Not to mention his financial planner.
I doubt there are any $1.5 million houses in Beverly Hills, besides gardener’s shacks.
The minimum scale for an actor with a speaking part in a movie or TV show is $716 per day. About 2500 bucks a week.
That would be the rate paid to all the people who play parts like “Officer at Window” or “Ticket Taker #1”.
Once an actor gets a reputation for bringing something a little extra to a film and is no longer strictly background material, I’m sure the rate goes way up.
Here are the AFTRA scale rates for performers on TV. If you’re on network TV on a 30 minute show or less, and are in the fifth pay grade, you’ll get a minimum of $2178 per day. Pretty darned good money.
But the big money for most commercial actors is in Residuals.
TV actors get paid residuals when a show airs, so the ones that make it to syndication and air over and over again are the big lottery winners. According to the link, the author mentions that his friend got a job on a commercial that turned out to be very popular, and eaned $100,000 that year in residuals. For what might have been an afternoon’s work.
The actors in the two links above have many acting credits, and I’m sure they’re reasonably well off.
It wasn’t always that way. In the early 60’s, some actors were not getting residuals. I think the cast of “Gilligan’s Island” wound up with very little profit from that show.
But today’s TV and movie actors seem to do okay. That cite above says landing a part on a TV pilot can pay $30,000 (on the low end). And if it makes it to be a series, that alone can set up an actor for life.
Actually, reading futher in that book, there’s the story of ‘Jon’, who’d probably exactly the kind of actor the OP is thinking of: He’d had various bit parts on TV shows and did a lot of Soap Opera work. When he got an audition to do a network pilot, he had to sign the contract before he even went in: $60,000 for the pilot, and $35,000 per episode for a maximum of six years if he got the part. A series usually does 26 episodes per year, so that’s $910,000 per year. Plus residuals.
These are not bit actors. These are character actors who aren’t much considered for lead roles. I recognize their names, so they are passibly well known. Besides doing several non-starring roles in films or TV shows each year, they probably do other things like stage roles, dinner theater, commercials, voice-over work, and teaching acting classes. Such people make $100,000 to $500,000 a year, I suspect.
Is there any chance that the actor you’re talking about is John David Carson? He had a steady career during the 70s and 80s as the archetypical “bit part” actor. He started off with an impressive film debut alongside Rock Hudson and Angie Dickinson as the lead in Pretty Maids All in a Row, a high-school sex comedy. After that, he was able to pretty consistently land bit parts in soap operas and television shows, often playing untrustworthy and sleazy but harmless characters - patsies, debtors, drunks, etc. He was in Charlie’s Angels, Falcon Crest, The Fall Guy, as well as a few B-movies like Empire of the Ants and Day of the Dolphin. Carson was very good-looking but he didn’t have the stature, the charisma or the voice to be a leading man, so he was consigned to these kind of roles. Nevertheless, he had a solid career of it.
However, he wound up losing all of his money to a gambling addiction. After his last role, in Pretty Woman, 1990, he moved to Las Vegas and proceeded to piss away all of the savings that he had acquired in his film career. How do I know this? I spoke to his ex-girlfriend over the phone; I managed to track her down because I wanted to interview Carson about Pretty Maids All in a Row. I wanted to write an article on the film for the local alt paper. I couldn’t find Carson but I spoke to his ex, Sharon - she said he was a hopeless drunk and gambler who frequented the seedier casinos of Vegas, and eventually he went totally broke and had to resort to stealing his friends’ stuff for more gambling money, consequently alienating everyone around him and ruining his life. According to her, he is now living on the street. She also said he wrote a screenplay about his life and he’s trying to get it produced. I find the whole thing fascinating so I mention it at every opportunity, and this is a perfect one.
I don’t think so. The story mentions that ‘Jon’ was up against Jake Busey for a part. Jake Busey is in his 30’s.
Only if they’re established stars known for their drawing power. I doubt there are more than two dozen actors at any given time who have that sort of clout.
The star will get paid well, but they have to be proven box office to get a percentage of the gross.
Just stopping by to mention that my favourite ‘bit part’ occurs in the film Shade. On the imdb Shawn Frances Lee is credited as ‘Black dress bimbo’, but on the actual DVD she is credited as ‘Bitch in the black dress’.
The weekly pay rates quoted above are good, but the issue would be how many weeks out of the year one is working. I suspect that most bit players are waiting tables on the side and living in the Valley.
If it helps, someone I know is close friends with a working comedian who gets bit parts in shows. I mean, real bit parts, like “guy using copier” or the occasional line. He doesnt make much money at all. You would never recognize him. You might see him on VH1 for a few seconds or something, but not much else.
My understanding is that the strategy is to get on a popular sitcom or something and hope to get in on the residual gravy train or to finally get that big break. In the meantime, it sounds like he makes less than most people I know.
Remember the guy in Trading Places who just said “Yeah!” every time his buddy made a comment? They are credited as “Big Black Guy” and “Even Bigger Black Guy.”
My brother in law is truly a bit actor; commercials, a few background roles. He makes a decent living at it because the scale and residuals are so high, but it’s not a huge amount of money because the jobs dry up.
Now he’s got a recurring role on “Little Mosque on the Prairie,” and that’ll really boost the income.
There are very complex rules about who is an extra and who is a principal. If the camera focuses on you you are a principal, even in a crowd, if you are in the background you aren’t. Principals get residuals, extras don’t. I’d guess that working a copier in the background is an extra job.
One acting newsgroup we used to look at had a lot of posts from a couple who were professional extras, and who spread misinformation left and right. Getting even a very small continuing role on a series is definitely the way to go.
Being credited means you are a principal, but it doesn’t mean you make more than union scale. My daughter was credited when she was on, and in a fairly good way (one of two names on the slide, big letters) but still got scale. Which wasn’t bad for a 12 year old kid.
The big money does make up for the long stretches without a job. My daughter was getting jobs once in 18 auditions, and that was really good. So if you make that money for continuous work, you do very well.
The story goes that actors unemployment rate is about 90%. Don’t know how much truth there is to that. Since they still have to pay bills they often have to take jobs outside of acting when they don’t get acting roles.
I heard Mickey Rourke say that when he stopped getting roles he called a friend and asked him for a job working construction. The friend told him to keep looking for acting jobs.
Interesting NPR article about a B-list actress, Beth Broderick, and current Hollywood economics.
Excerpt…
But over the past decade, the wages for the professional class have plummeted, Broderick says. She used to make $25,000 to $30,000 to guest star on an hourlong TV episode. Now she gets about $6,000, which comes out to $4,800 after commission.
“The average actor might only be able to book six to eight guest star jobs a year — that would be high,” she says. “So when you start doing the math, you can’t live on that in Los Angeles.”
Annually, Broderick says her annual income has gone from $300,000 to $500,000 down to $70,000 and that’s for the same amount of work.
Further NPR searches has revealed a growing group of ‘extras’ registering for parts in movies. The pay rate is $64/day.
