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Annual income of your average Hollywood actor? (1 Viewer)

Mike Brogan

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Here are some numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
"Median annual earnings of salaried actors were $23,470 in 2002. The middle 50 percent earned between $15,320 and $53,320. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $13,330, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $106,360. Median annual earnings in the industries employing the largest numbers of actors were as follows:
Accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping, and payroll services $29,590
Performing arts companies 28,850
Motion picture and video industries 17,610
Minimum salaries, hours of work, and other conditions of employment are covered in collective bargaining agreements between the producers and the unions representing workers. The Actors’ Equity Association (Equity) represents stage actors; the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) covers actors in motion pictures, including television, commercials, and films; and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) represents television and radio studio performers. While these unions generally determine minimum salaries, any actor or director may negotiate for a salary higher than the minimum.
Under terms of a joint SAG and AFTRA contract covering all unionized workers, motion picture and television actors with speaking parts earned a minimum daily rate of $678 or $2,352 for a 5-day week as of July 1, 2003. Actors also receive contributions to their health and pension plans and additional compensation for reruns and foreign telecasts of the productions in which they appear.
According to Equity, the minimum weekly salary for actors in Broadway productions as of June 30, 2003 was $1,354. Actors in Off-Broadway theaters received minimums ranging from $479 to $557 a week as of October 27, 2003, depending on the seating capacity of the theater. Regional theaters that operate under an Equity agreement pay actors $531 to $800 per week. For touring productions, actors receive an additional $111 per day for living expenses ($117 per day in larger, higher cost cities).
Some well-known actors—stars—earn well above the minimum; their salaries are many times the figures cited, creating the false impression that all actors are highly paid. For example, of the nearly 100,000 SAG members, only about 50 might be considered stars. The average income that SAG members earn from acting—less than $5,000 a year—is low because employment is erratic. Therefore, most actors must supplement their incomes by holding jobs in other occupations.
Many actors who work more than a set number of weeks per year are covered by a union health, welfare, and pension fund, which includes hospitalization insurance and to which employers contribute. Under some employment conditions, Equity and AFTRA members receive paid vacations and sick leave."
More info here on salaries of actors, producers, directors etc...
 

Holadem

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This dude was a couple of seats from me on a transatlantic flight the other day, in *gasp* coach with the rest of us mere mortals...
Joe Morton
14_joemorton_theering.jpg

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H
 

countryguy10

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You are a wealth of information David! Thanks for the info. It was just what I was looking for. What exactly do you do in the hollywood industry?
 

Yee-Ming

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Quote:
Mikah Cerucco said:
/forum/thread/222467/annual-income-of-your-average-hollywood-actor#post_2685302
Here are some numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
"Median annual earnings of salaried actors were $23,470 in 2002. The middle 50 percent earned between $15,320 and $53,320. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $13,330, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $106,360.
Wow. Here we all thought actors make serious coin, but 90% of them make less than $106K. I guess that quip about there being only maybe 50 stars out of 100,000 SAG members is spot-on.

Having said that, the impression one gets is still that actors can make good money, making tens of thousands per episode if they're regulars on a hit TV show. Even bloody Kim K gets $$20K per ep of that useless reality show featuring her family, and that isn't even acting. (Or at least that's what I vaguely recall E! News saying, we leave the TV on E! in the mornings when having breakfast and getting ready for work.) And don't get me started on the Jersey Shore crowd.

Perhaps that's the rub: "hit TV show". How many shows are hits nowadays?
 

WillG

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Glad someone brought up residuals
If you're familiar with "Animal House" you've probably heard the story of how Donald Sutherland was offered something like a low 5 figure salary for his work in the film, or just a residial percentage. He took the former, but had he took the percentage, it would have been worth tens of millions today.

And although it relates to music, supposedly the release of "The Beatles Anthology" materials finally made Pete Best a millionaire.
 

mattCR

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Residuals do matter. But SAG struck a new deal this year that basically turned off the spigot on residuals from anything prior to 1972. So, if you were an actor collecting residuals from those programs in the 1960s, those checks stopped flat this year.

This may be good in a sesne that you are more likely to see DVD releases of those titles potentially as now they would be far more profitable, but kind of a bad news for actors who don't get as much work.

Many actors who take a day or a week work may sign away residuals for a relatively small ammount for upfront monies. This is much more common for say a single day shoot or a small bit or ahem, crap.

But this is why Roger Corman gets a lot of pub and has risen in popularity despite the schlocky titles.. the comment has always been that he has always been fair with his management of residuals.. and many actors have for quite some time proclaimed studios "cook the books" to hide the value in percentage of residuals truly owed.
 

Aaron Silverman

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mattCR said:
But this is why Roger Corman gets a lot of pub and has risen in popularity despite the schlocky titles.. the comment has always been that he has always been fair with his management of residuals.. and many actors have for quite some time proclaimed studios "cook the books" to hide the value in percentage of residuals truly owed.
Actors, writers, directors. . .basically anyone who might get a cut of net. (I remember when Jack Nicholson got a cut of the gross for the first Tim Burton Batman flick. . .that was a big deal at the time.) Studio accountants can make it look like *no* film makes a profit.

Ah, Hollywood Accounting.
 

Wayne Pollock

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Eugene Levy is worth 55 Million. Never had a lead role and never had a break out film outside of American Pie.
 

Tino

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Wayne Pollock said:
Eugene Levy is worth 55 Million. Never had a lead role and never had a break out film outside of American Pie.
Splash (1984) was a bigger hit (adjusted for inflation) than all the American Pie films and his part in that film was substantially bigger. My favorite role of his. :tu:
Splash....Domestic Total Adj. Gross: $162,708,600...courtesy www.boxofficemojo.com
 

WillG

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My favorite role of his. thumbsup.gif
I would agree. Also loved him in "Vacation" even though his role was a glorified cameo. And even though it wasn't a very good movie, Levy and Moranis were funny in "Club Paradise"
 

Johnny Angell

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I've always wondered why some actors/celebrities do commercials, when I thought they were already filthy rich. I see Wendie Malick doing some commercials now, but she's currently in a successful series and has had a bunch of work over the years. Does someone like her really need the money? Maybe it's just easy money that's too hard to turn down.
I guess it shouldn't be surprising that even familiar faces in the films aren't making big bucks. Except for the stars, they're basically contractors, one-step below an employee. There are a lot of employees who don't get rich.
 

Michael Elliott

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Well, George Clooney does them because the films he wants to make (IDES, DESCENDANTS., UP IN THE AIR) don't pay him much. He says those paid scale so in order to do them he goes overseas and gets millions to do commercials.
 

Mark-W

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Fascinating thread.
I don't have much to add, other than I know the specifics for Mark Hamill as they way he and his peers in the Star Wars films were paid a percentage of the revenue, so he pretty much became a millionaire before Return of the Jedi was released.
From People Magazine in August 31, 1981:
Star Wars brought Mark enough money ($1,000 a week, plus one-quarter of one percent of the profits) for the Malibu house, Empire brought more money and the Manhattan co-op, and Jedi, he hopes, will pay for a projected Connecticut farm. "I want to have horses, sheep, pigs and a lot of space for my family," Hamill says
I know some "name actors" have percentages in their contracts, but I wonder how common it is to give a percentage for folks like Harrison, Carrie, and Mark before they had name recognition.
Holadem said:
And then there are one hit wonders like Mark Hamill, who going by his IMDB profile gets steady work in animation, video games and straight to video productions.
I really have no idea.
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H
 

WillG

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but I wonder how common it is to give a percentage for folks like Harrison, Carrie, and Mark before they had name recognition.
It may not be that uncommon. It's definitely been done in the past in order to pay actors a lesser up front salary on lower budget films. I think I mentioned the Donald Sutherland/Animal House story in this thread (Although Sutherland was already a prominent actor by the time Animal House was made). In a case like Star Wars, it was probably real easy as they didn't have much of a budget, relatively speaking and by pretty much all accounts most people involved with the film figured it would end up being a total flop.
And even when a movie does do well, studio accounts can get creative and make it seem like a successful movie never made a profit.
We probably don't hear about it as much because stories like Star Wars where what seems like the pittance of a fraction of a percent of profits ends up making the actors millionaires due to enormous financial success are extremely rare.
Somewhat related, I once heard that Joyce Randolph was the only cast member of "The Honeymooners" to have made any significant money off the show. The story was that she was married to some hotshot entertainment lawyer who got a deal for residuals for what would become syndication into her contract and the studio executives were like "Yeah, sure, whatever" as at the time, nobody had imagined that the shows would ever air more than once.
 

Michael Henry

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Very interesting discussion!
You have many different scenarios at work here. One that comes to mind are the movies that cost hardly ANY money and relative unknowns in the cast - yet go on to make millions upon millions in revenue...How are these actors compensated?
Some that come to mind are the "found footage" movies:
  • Paranormal Activity and Katie Featherston
  • Blair Witch Project and Heather Donahue
  • etc
What about other movies that cost next to nothing like Napoleon Dynamite, Open Water, Saw?
Then you've got My Big Fat Greek Wedding and where Nia Vardalos prob made the majority of the movie because it was based on her life?
I have always been curious how these actors are paid...
 

WillG

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You have many different scenarios at work here. One that comes to mind are the movies that cost hardly ANY money and relative unknowns in the cast - yet go on to make millions upon millions in revenue...How are these actors compensated?
Some that come to mind are the "found footage" movies:
Paranormal Activity and Katie Featherston
Blair Witch Project and Heather Donahue
etc
I think in most cases, they don't get anything. They get their salary as per their contract, and generally the studio has no further financial obligation to the person. Although, I do believe I have heard stories in the past where in cases like the above the studio would end up paying the actors a little extra based on the financial success of the film as kind of a "Thank You" with the interest of keeping good relations (especially if there is sequel potential, that wasn't part of the actor's initial contract).
A little bit of a different scenario but I remember reading that as the budget on "Titanic" went into over-runs, James Cameron decided to forfeit his contracted percentage of the film's profits. When Titanic went on to become the highest box office grossing film of all time, Fox decided to honor Cameron's original percentage deal anyway even though they were no longer contractually obligated to.
 

Aaron Silverman

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I remember for the first Tim Burton Batman movie, Jack Nicholson got a percentage of the gross, as opposed to the net, and it was a pretty big deal at the time. Not sure how common that is nowadays.
 

Tino

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CaseDskater said:
You don't abbreviate Etal. It's either Etal or Et al or Etux/Et ux etc.
Hilarious. Did you join just to correct someone's grammar? If that's the reason, you'll be plenty busy around here. Btw, welcome to the forum. :)
 

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