I’ve been watching a lot of Hawaii 5-0, and I started to wonder how much the people who show up simply to be a dead body make to do it? Is it extra pocket money or can you make a career of it, and do you have to be an official actor to be a weekly corpse?
IANA actor, but I believe that the Screen Actor’s Guild only gets involved if there’s a speaking part. If a guy’s just lying there the entire time, I think you can put just about anyone in the position.
No clue on how much it pays, but at a guess: not very much.
They’re background actors, aka extras. (Unless the corpse in question is also alive in a speaking role at some point in the episode. Then they get paid like any other actor, whatever their agent can negotiate above the minimum.)
The pay depends on whether the extra is union, that is Screen Actors Guild, or non-union. Union rate looks to be $145 per day now:
http://www.sagaftra.org/files/sag/Digest_Background_Actors_LA_Zones_8_4_0.pdf
A background actor is guaranteed 8 hours pay no matter how short their actual work time; they get time and a half for anything over 8 hours.
A BG actor who plays a corpse will probably be union, because the show may need to bring him back for multiple shoot days. A production can’t make exclusive claim on an actor’s work opportunities without bringing him into SAG via Taft Hartley. There are BG actors who specialize in playing corpses, they can remain still and look cadaverous better than a random person off the street.
If the BG actor playing the corpse isn’t union - because you only need her for one shoot day, she only gets paid the non-union rate, 70- something bucks for eight hours, with time and a half for overtime. If you’re going to be having lots of corpses in a scene, you’ll probably use non-union extras for most of them, but use the specialist union types if they’re seen in close-up.
Source: me, AD on TV shows in the early 2000s
It can be anywhere from being (grudgingly) allowed to get something to eat at the craft services table to a hundred bucks or so if you’re lucky.
I used to work at a shop that was being used for a scene in a TV show, and the store personnel who were going to have non-speaking roles as background people were initially excited at the thought of being on TV, but by the end of the day, they’d had their fill of Hollywood and just wanted to get done and go home.
Extras are often SAG members too. Normally, the top 25 extra slots have to be filled by SAG members, and any after that can be non-union. A couple of decades ago, the extras had their own union, the Screen Extras Guild, but the producers crushed it to reduce their costs.
The highest paid extras are the stand-ins for the regular cast members. Stand-ins match the cast members in size and coloring, and take the place of the cast during the lighting sessions before each shot.
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Many SAG extras are actually serious actors. Some will get a couple of speaking roles during the year, and do extra work the rest of the year to maintain their SAG benefits, especially the health plan. Some are retirees or students, some are members of other Hollywood unions who get reciprocal benefits from the DGA or IATSE for the time they put in as SAG extras.
There are serious actors among non-union extras too, but there’s a wider variety of types here - musicians, comics, students, retirees, ex-cons, the functioning mentally ill, TV groupies.
If the corpse has to spend a lot of time in the make-up chair, and more time on the ME’s table, in you different make-up, and perhaps even have to endure going through part of the exam, like being sprayed all over with water, a la Law & Order, or CSI, the actor is going to be a SAG member. That’s actually pretty hard work, and you want a professional.
L&O actually has a rule that someone who appears as a corpse, even if they don’t have any lines in the opening, or flashbacks (or surveillance tapes) can’t appear in another role for a year. That seems to indicate that that use union actors.
Oh yeah, just remembered. The BG actors who play corpses will probably get a bump in pay because they have to wear special make-up, and may be partially or fully nude.
That is not quite right. The criterion is not having a speaking part, a principal actor has at least one shot where he or she is the focus of attention. A body the lead actors paw over meets this, a body on a big battlefield does not.
The first commercial my daughter did had a lot of kids in the supposed audience for the unveiling of the latest Hess toy truck. Those in the front row were principals, those in the back were extras. None of them spoke.
Wow! Wouldn’t it be fun to put “TV Corpse” for “occupation” on your tax returns?
Are we assuming, or do we know, that a corpse must be played by a live human? Wouldn’t a doll/model be a better choice in some cases (no worry about accidentally breathing or blinking)?
I do, as I call it, a lot of “walking scenery” and my wife and I often play rousing games of “spot me” on TV shows and films. Currently pay can run from nothing more than the pleasure of being there to about $250 per day.
PS – speaking does NOT mean SAG membership required; trust me on that one. There are ways around it and that’s why directors get such big bucks.
(Everyone has to have a hobby 
)
They get paid in dead presidents.
I came in to post this, damn you!
If someone doesn’t recognize her, that is “Lily” from the Verizon commercials.
Damn you too, copper! 
Also, staying on YouTube, search for “” Let’s Talk About Something More Interesting. " It’s Ms Vayntrub and her partner doing hilariously silly interviews with various celebs.
Regaurdless of the pay, I hear its a gig to die for.
if you see them breathe or twitch they get docked.
The SAG (now SAG-AFTRA) commercials contract is different from the TV/Movie contracts. In TV/Movies, an actor can be very featured in a scene, but without lines, they are simply paid as a background actor. Been there, done that. In commercials they have the focus of attention or handling the product rule that makes the actor a principal player, with the much bigger bucks and possible residuals that entails.