Working actors and real life

Not to mention his residuals from The Cosby Show may have run out long ago. He wasn't in a starring role there, albeit a regular one — and that was over 20 years ago. Even if he was making good money then, it won't last a lifetime. And we don't know what kind of student loans or other debts he may be dealing with even if his IMDB page is impressive.

On a more personal note, I actually used to work at Trader Joe's (they originated in California and most of their stores are there, and there was one very close to where I lived at the time). I can see why, of all retail places, a working actor would go there to pay the bills. Good pay for retail, usually a flexible schedule, good benefits, and the product there is JUST specialty enough where the customers are usually more knowledgable than at a regular supermarket so they're a different kind of difficult.

Indeed, most people don't realise that even those A-list Hollywood stars on red carpets don't own all of the clothes/jewels/watches they see them wear - most of the time they are on loan! 

Apparently press reports about star actor earnings are vastly overblown, according to the likes of Jessica Chastain - one of the reasons why the vastly unequal pay between male and female leads went on for so long is that actors don't know what each other are earning. And there's a huge pay gap between white actors and those of colour. She was shocked when she found out what Octavia Spencer was actually getting paid.

And that's gross pay - you have to take out all the agents' fees and taxes and other costs of being a freelancer from that.

So if even the 'stars' aren't earning as much as they appear to be, how much less does the average jobbing actor have to get by on?!

Gosh, even a Strallen needs a second income stream!

I doubt much has changed since the 1970s when Tom Baker was working on a building site when he got the call to be Dr Who

A good place for spotting moderately well-known actors used to be leading guided walks of London

Quite. My partner is an actor - he does a lot of driving work. Other actor friends of mine have been teaching assistants, worked FOH, taught dance/singing, waited tables, done flyering, worked retail. Someone self-employed doing work not directly related to their profession/trade is hardly shocking.

As above, I’m a writer and dramaturg. Until last year I had a 9-5 “day job” around that. Currently I work as a hospital receptionist. And when term starts I will be doing the odd day of Uni teaching.

It’s a constant battle between “get a proper job again” or “keep enough time to pursue the writing while it seems to be progressing” with the ever present “you’ll be temping forever grow up and get a real job”

Truth is I and lots of others could never be sure we’d never go back to that

The realities of the industry just don’t get talked about enough.

Did anyone see that documentary David Harewood did for Sky a while ago? It was called the F Word, ‘f’ being ‘failure’. He talked to a lot of actors about their difficulties dealing with failure and underemployment in the industry.

I've worked with some terrific actors FOH in theatres. In fact, out of my actor friends, the smartest and most switched on ones do work FOH when they're between jobs or having a slow time with auditions. I think it keeps them humble as well as alive!

Is Karma’s A Bitch too easy a label for her?

On a happier note, something called Shakespeare Magazine has linked to his drama workshops and relayed the positive feedback of previous attendees: 

I used to work for a technology company and our London office support team was almost entirely made up of musical theatre actors. After we found the first one to be our office manager, she introduced us to several others. We ended up with a rotating cast of brilliant people who would all fill in for each other. “Louise is doing Babes in the Wood so I’m filling in for her” and so on.

So much better than using temps from an agency. And every single one of them was a glorious human being.

That's awful. That woman's reaction, I mean.

My boyfriend's brother is an actor. He's always had another job. When he was in his 20s, he was spending summers doing various seasonal jobs (anything, from painting fences to picking fruit) on a farm in France for a couple of years. Many of his colleagues were doing the same back then - theatre salaries were (and still are) ridiculously low. Since then, he's been teaching, working in the radio (OK, that's not really far from acting but still), working in PR. He is now 50, one might say he's been fairly successful - not a celebrity but has been in films, tv shows, still does theatre. But - he's still out of the job sometimes and he has two children; one of them is ill. He basically needs a stable source of income (and acting isn't one, even for someone recognizable) because, well, kids need food from time to time, and his kid also needs a costly therapy. It's romantic to be an actor, but there's nothing romantic in not being able to pay your bills or provide for your children. And after all, it's perfectly normal and not unusual to do something else than you've been trained to do and/or have been known for doing - we all need to earn money, dust isn't really calorie-high and we don't want to live with our parents until we're 48. For example, I'm a journalist. I work in a bank. It happens to all of us. We sometimes need to... adapt. As they say in my country - if you don't have what you like, you like what you have. Nothing wrong about it. And certainly nothing to feel bad about, dear ms/mrs Karma Lawrence.

That's brilliant! unfortunately I've never been anything but sneered at for having another career outside whatever I'm doing. Which is a shame because actually in general companies should be more open minded about what temps of all kind bring- they might accidentally find the perfect person for something without realising it! Though funny enough, someone in my very first temp job had left to join the RSC and another fellow temp, who also went to RADA at the same time as me, is now a TV director for the BBC. So three of us escaped a life there....

Saying that my current job are slightly less sneery about it. Unfortunately it's not one where I can use any skills (other than personal restraint in holding back physical violence towards total cockwombles haha) 

Why don't I ever see actors doing normal jobs?

I'd love for Tom Bateman to top me up in the garage or dear Jonny B fill up my sack in Waitrose.