# Do actors get paid if their picture appears in a movie? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 22, 2009, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-actors-get-paid-if-their-picture-appears-in-a-movie/503893 "2009-07-22T19:51:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-actors-get-paid-if-their-picture-appears-in-a-movie/503893/21 "2009-07-24T17:39:01Z")
They certainly can demand payment. In the movie _Back to the Future II,_ the producers included recycled footage of Crispin Glover, who had played George McFly in the first BTTF movie. Glover sued Universal, the distributor of the movies, claiming that his contract for the first film did not allow subsequent uses of his portrayal of George McFly in new films. The day before the lawsuit was to be heard, Universal settled with him for an undisclosed sum. The Screen Actors Guild later rewrote their rules regarding the derivative use of actors’ works in films or TV series, setting terms under which to require the studios and networks to give payment and credit to the actors. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-actors-get-paid-if-their-picture-appears-in-a-movie/503893/22 "2009-07-24T18:04:55Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > There’s two sets of compensation to consider. > > First production compensation: this is getting paid to pose, get photoed, whatever. Certainly if an actor is hired so a photo can be taken of him, then that time is compensated, even if the photo is not used. That is being paid for the work you do when you do it. It’s hourly work. A photo, as an artistic expression, has an implied copyright owned by the photographer. I’m not sure if a brief glimpse would or would not be covered by fair use, but if it was an integral part of the movie - such as a close up is taken of it - it would be. Thus the movie maker would seem to need to get permission from the copyright holder. That’s beyond the use of image issues already discussed. > [@](#): > > Second would be residuals. Most actors don’t get residuals, do they? Only whatever their contract covers, which if they aren’t a big star, probably is a one-time wage for production costs. Now writers and production people should get residuals, but I don’t think actors are paid that way. Movies don’t have residuals, of course. But for commercials and TV, the standard SAG contract does give residuals to all principals, which covers not only stars but all actors who have a name in the script and who have a prominent placement. In the first commercial my daughter did, she was a principal because she was in front of the audience and had a name in the cast list. There were extras in the next row back. One of the things that pissed off the director was the mothers who tried to get their kids to push forward so they’d be featured and thus be principals. Extras don’t get residuals. Extras don’t have to be SAG, and, most importantly, extras get worse food. 🙂 I’m not sure what residuals have to do with the issue at hand, though. The contract often calls for payments for other uses, such as a DVD, but that isn’t an instance of a residual payment. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-actors-get-paid-if-their-picture-appears-in-a-movie/503893.md?page=1)