Australian actor Luke Cook has lifted the lid on his surprisingly low pay while appearing in popular streaming shows — and he’s not alone.
The Sydney-born star, who lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children, has starred in series such as Netflix’s The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Katy Keene and Dynasty, and Hulu’s Dollface, still has to work two jobs “to survive”.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Aussie actor in Hollywood Luke Cook explains SAG strike.
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“I am not a millionaire,” Cook said in a TikTok on Friday, when about 160,000 Hollywood actors officially went on strike after failing to reach a deal with Hollywood’s biggest studios.
“I drive a 2010 Mazda S3, and my previous car was a 2006 Ford Taurus.
“Ninety-five per cent of the actors in (the Screen Actors Guild) cannot make a living from acting, they’ve got to have side hustles. I am one of those actors.”
Cook said the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strike, which has brought most film and television productions to a halt as actors call for increased pay, is not about millionaires, despite what the public may think.
A-listers such as Matt Damon, Margot Robbie and Meryl Streep have voiced their support for the strike, but their pay packets are not likely to be affected by the demands.
“The actors that you’re thinking of, who are the millionaires, are usually series regulars or big A-listers in big movies,” Cook said.
“The actors who surround them, though, are actors like myself: guest stars, co-stars etc., and we’re paid chips.”
For Dollface, Cook said his image was used on a billboard on Sunset Boulevard but he wasn’t paid a cent for it.
“The amount they paid me to be in the show was not much better,” he said.
“I got paid per episode, which is two weeks of work for $US7500. Then it’s taxed, then a manager takes 10 per cent, an agent takes 10 per cent and then a lawyer takes five per cent.”
The Guardians of the Galaxy actor said he was “one rung” below series regulars, who make about $US100,000 per episode.
And while they are “very wealthy” and “very talented people”, he said the strike was about “people like me, who need to be paid more for the work that they do, and let them have a portion of the profits that these streamers and these big companies are bringing in.”
“If you see me on TV, I shouldn’t have to have two side jobs in order to survive,” he said.
SAG-AFTRA’s president, Fran Drescher, pushed back on the notion that all actors are wealthy, claiming that a vast majority “are just working people just trying to make a living just trying to pay their rent, just trying to put food on the table and get their kids off to school”.
“Everything that you watch, that you enjoy, that you’re entertained by are scenes filled with people that are not making the big money,” she added.
The minimum amount of money a performer must take home in one year to qualify for health insurance is $US26,470 ($A38,840).
However, while well-known actors are paid millions of dollars to star in movies and TV shows, many members of SAG-AFTRA don’t bring in enough income each year to meet the union’s minimum requirement.
According to Shaan Sharma, an actor and SAG-AFTRA board member, just 12.7 per cent of SAG-AFTRA members qualify for the union’s health plan.
Among other demands, actors on strike are calling for a rethinking of residuals.
Due to the unpredictable nature of TV acting and the competitive nature of landing roles, actors traditionally rely on residual payments, paid out when films or movies are replayed, as a form of steady income when work is hard to come by.
Actors say that the calculation around residuals has changed. As more shows and movies have moved to streaming services, where it isn’t always clear how often content is replayed, actors say they’re making significantly less money.
– With CNN
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