When someone like Tina Fey shows up for 1 skit on SNL what does she get paid? I assume she gets the basic union rate per day. Lots of actors show up on SNL for 1 skit so I figure they all get paid the same.
Of course in the case of Fey she could ask for higher pay but I don’t she’s in need of money these days.
It entirely depends on the actor. There is no set rate.
There is a minimum payment for an actor. For Fay to show up like she did, she probably just got the minimum.
Looking at the SAG rate sheet, she probably got $906 as a one-day performer.
What about in a movie? How much did Sean Connery get for his appearance at the end of Robin Hood Prince of Thieves? (RIP, Alan Rickman.)
From the Trivia webpage of the IMDb for that movie:
> Connery got $250,000 for two days work. He donated it to charity.
Frequently you can find mentions of the money paid to actors on the IMDb.
Movies are generally different. Actors usually can get more than the scale rate for cameos, since films have bigger budgets. The rate card I linked to is a minimum, so if you have clout, you can negotiate for more.
I guess everything comes down to negotiation. Fey is Very popular (Good for Her!) so she can ask & get close to the amount she deserves. There are a lot of funny people out there, so I hope the successful ones get the money.
They make up for all the people who get screwed over daily… earning just the bare minimum and who have to pay a premium out of pocket just to park there.
“$120 Bucks??? But I was working in that building All Day…!”
“Yeah, well they don’t validate. There’s an ATM around the corner.”
I doubt Fay got any more than scale. She did it as a favor and for fun, and SNL can’t afford her movie rate. If she wanted more, they could just rework or scratch the skit.
However, they probably covered her travel expenses. They have deals for Free rooms and flights in exchange for ads.
Fey (not Fay) lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, so she wouldn’t need any travel expenses except maybe for a limousine to take her to the studio. Fey’s Sarah Palin imitations are one of the most popular Saturday Night Live sketches. Fey won an Emmy for those sketches. I don’t know how much she gets paid, but they’re glad to get her whenever they can.
You misspelled agent. That is what they get their money for.
Now Fey might well have gotten union scale because it was no hassle for her and the press she got for doing it was worth far more than what SNL could pay. I believe guests on talk shows get scale for the same reason. But the pay for jobs for celebs which don’t have benefits gets negotiated.
There is a very small theater in LA and the actors wanted to work for free but could not due to union rules. They were trying to get the rule changed or waived but I don’t know if they were successful.
That’s an interesting issue, but it’s really something for a separate thread, I think. You started by asking about how much an established star like Fey gets for a single (often unannounced) skit on Saturday Night Live. Now you’re asking about what beginning actors get for acting in very small theaters in Los Angeles that serve mostly to get them noticed by agents and producers. You can find more about this if you search on the phrases “theater”, “Los Angeles”, “minimum wage”, and “union”.
I’m told by a TV business insider who is a close relative that SNL doesn’t pay anyone more than scale, not even hosts, because everyone wants to do it, and they don’t have the budget anyway.
rumor has it the Super Bowl only pays expenses for the halftime acts. And last year the rumor was they wanted to charge the artists to play halftime.