When most movie buffs think of actors, they think of the celebrities, those few glittering stars with luxurious lives, super skinny bodies, designer gowns, free designer jewelry, commercial endorsements, vacation homes on private islands and multiple divorces (and $100,000,000 bank accounts.)
However, fewer than one percent of SAG (Screen Actors Guild) members actually make a decent living; that is to say, make more than $30,000 a year. These super celebrities that we all read about on sites like Reel Life With Jane are even fewer than one percent. Yes, it’s fun to immerse ourselves in their fantasy lives. Today, though, let’s look at the life of the regular working actor.
The average working actor spends more time looking for work than actually working on a set. The average working actor most likely has what we call a “straight” job that pays the rent and buys the groceries and allows for some flexibility to go to auditions. The average working actor’s life is filled with more disappointments, non-returned phone calls and self-examination than with jetliners, diamonds, fancy restaurants or agents. Here’s a typical week in my life as an average working actor:
Sunday
- Yoga
- Write three columns for three different film sites
- Vocal exercises
- Acting class — four hours
- Review call boards for small, independent productions that are casting
- Submit head shots, resumes or links to online casting sites
Monday
- Work out
- Eight hours at day job (part-time business management)
- Sneak into the bathroom to have a phone call with screenwriting partner
- At lunch break, run to audition which my agent set up for model patient gig. Model patient is a low stress gig that really doesn’t need actors, but, for some reason, uses actors. You work at a medical facility and pretend to be a patient with particular symptoms which nurses and doctors in training try to diagnose. I once had a model patient gig that was really sweet: they used me as a demo subject for new ultrasound machine. All I had to do was lie on a table and let them scan me. For hours. Once I fell asleep and started snoring; that was bad. I book the gig. It is great: I will be working for them once or twice a month. It pays $100/hour.
Tuesday
- Chris called me to say that my scene in his feature-length independent film was ruined by sunspots. He wants me to come in tomorrow to reshoot. Damn! Tomorrow I can’t come in. I have an extremely high-paying commercial shoot for American Express. Chris’s film is a low-budget indie film; I think the actors were paid maybe a dollar an hour. I love his story; he has a wonderful voice and a huge heart. But I had only planned in my schedule for the one-day shoot, and I’m really, really sorry. Now I won’t be able to claim a credit for this film at all since he ends up cutting the scene — and my character — entirely.
Wednesday
- Two hours at day job. They make rumblings about how I should commit to full-time or quit.
- Drive to American Express shoot. Traffic is horrible, and this isn’t even L.A.!
- I am really upset about Chris’s film, and it takes me 17 takes to be cheerful enough for the American Express commercial. However, this doesn’t seem to bother them and they wrap the commercial. These things pay pretty well, but you can’t really put them on your resume. If you’re sending a bio to a studio film director or television casting director, you don’t want them to see that you work in commercials. Silly, I know, but that’s the way it is. They’re okay with seeing theater stuff and independent film, but they’d rather think you’re not a lowly actor in commercials; it makes them leery to take a chance on you.
- Acting class — four hours
Thursday
- Meeting with screenwriting partner. We go to her house and paste yellow sticky notes all over the walls and argue about plot arc.
- Work out
- Go to an audition that my agent has set up. It’s for a commercial for a local karate school. If you don’t book these, you never hear from anybody; you just are left hanging. The only way anyone ever calls you back is if you book the gig.
- Get an e-mail from the producer of a network television show for whom I shot one episode. That episode will not be airing. They had 16 weeks in the can, but their contract was only for 13 weeks. So, although I get paid well for that shoot, I will not be able to claim it on my bio or on my IMDB page.
Friday
- Yoga
- Work out
- Long phone meeting with my screenwriting partner
- Four hours at the day job
- Audition for an independent web series
- Audition for student short film
- Women in Film meeting
- Drinks with my friend the makeup artist. I get to hear about all the work she’s been doing — she works constantly, constantly.
Saturday
- Acting “workouts” with fellow actors
- E-mail my agent with an update on the auditions to which she sent me. I include an update on the independent shoots I did (which she doesn’t book me for and for which I don’t have to pay her; but I like to let her know how bankable I am).
- Look through the call boards for independent projects and submit head shots, resumes, and links to online casting sites
- Drive six hours round trip to the screening of an independent feature film I was in
- Book tickets for SXSW Film Festival, where another film I’m in will be premiering
Sunday
- Yoga
- Write three columns for three different film sites
- Vocal exercises
- Acting class — four hours
- Review call boards for small, independent productions that are casting and submit my info
- Read my sides for a U-5 (fewer than five lines of dialog) guest spot on a TV show shooting tomorrow
- Call in fake sick to my day job for tomorrow
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