Australian actor Luke Cook has lifted the lid on his shockingly low pay as Hollywood stays at a standstill because of the ongoing strike.
The Sydney-born star at the moment lives in LA along with his spouse and two youngsters, and revealed in a brutally sincere social media video that he has to work two further jobs to complement his earnings, regardless of starring in a number of exhibits.
The Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA), which represents 160,000 performers, known as a strike final week, becoming a member of writers within the first industry-wide shutdown in additional than 60 years after last-ditch negotiations failed.
Nearly all movie and tv manufacturing has now floor to a halt, impacting 1000’s.
Cook, 36, took to TikTok on Friday to elucidate what had introduced them up to now, offering extraordinarily private particulars about his personal monetary expertise after starring in exhibits and movies together with Netflix’s The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Dynasty and Guardians of the Galaxy.
“I am not a millionaire,” Cook stated within the video.
“I drive a 2010 Mazda S3, and my previous car was a 2006 Ford Tarus. 95 per cent of the actors in SAG cannot make a living from acting, so they’ve got to have side hustles. I am one of those actors.
“The actors that you’re thinking of, who are the millionaires, are usually series regulars or big A-listers in big movies. The actors who are around them, though, are actors like myself: guest stars, co-stars etc., and we’re paid chips.”
Cook then opened up about his pay for showing on Hulu’s Dollface.
“I did a show called Dollface last year, they put me on a billboard on Sunset Boulevard. Do you know how much they paid me to be on the billboard? Zero,” he stated.
“The amount they paid me to be on the show was not much better.”
The actor went on to elucidate that he was “paid per episode” which equalled “two weeks of work for $US7500”.
“Then it’s taxed, then a manager takes ten per cent, an agent takes ten per cent and then a lawyer takes 5 per cent,” Cook stated.
“I am one rung below a series regular, who is making maybe $100,000 per episode. They’re very wealthy and they’re worth it too, they’re usually very talented people.
“A huge portion of this strike is about people like me, who need to be paid more for the work that they do, who are asking for a portion of the profits that these streamers and big companies are bringing in.”
The actors’ strike obtained off to a dramatic begin final week when the solid of one of many yr’s most anticipated movies walked out of their very own film’s premiere.
The glitzy UK debut of Oppenheimer – which focuses on the story of Robert Oppenheimer, a key participant within the creation of the nuclear bomb – was thrown into chaos with Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon and Florence Pugh all vanishing moments earlier than the movie was attributable to start.
Director Christopher Nolan advised the viewers in London’s Leicester Square that his solid had walked out in solidarity with the just-called strike.
“You’ve seen them here earlier on the red carpet,” he stated.
“Unfortunately, they’re off to write their picket signs for what we believe to be an imminent strike by SAG, joining one of my guilds, the Writers Guild, in the struggle for fair wages for working members of the unions, and we support them.”
Striking actors be part of picket strains
Actors took to picket strains exterior studio headquarters from California to New York on Friday as film and tv manufacturing floor to a halt in essentially the most severe Hollywood strike in a long time.
Hundreds of strikers marched with placards on the Netflix constructing on Los Angeles’ famed Sunset Boulevard, in addition to at Disney, Paramount, Warner and Amazon premises, with passing drivers honking their horns in assist.
In New York, Jason Sudeikis and Susan Sarandon had been amongst A-listers who confirmed up for demonstrations, triggered by the refusal of studio bosses to fulfill actors’ calls for for higher pay and job safety.
“The studios are tone-deaf and greedy, and they need to wake up — because we are the ones that made them rich,” actress Frances Fisher, who starred in Titanic, advised AFP whereas marching exterior Paramount Pictures.
SAG-AFTRA members joined writers who’ve been on strike for weeks, triggering the primary industry-wide walkout for 63 years and successfully shutting down Hollywood.
“We’ve been out here for about 80 days… The fact that SAG-AFTRA went on strike brought a lot of energy, and there’s incredible solidarity,” stated “Friends” co-creator Marta Kauffman.
The studios “look like the devil,” she advised AFP, on the picket line exterior Netflix.
Actors formally went on strike at midnight Thursday after negotiations to succeed in a brand new take care of manufacturing studios ended with out an settlement.
The union’s calls for have centered on dwindling pay within the streaming period, and the menace posed by synthetic intelligence.
“We’re in this for the long haul, but this is a historic moment,” stated Vera Cherny, 44, who has had roles in “The Americans” and “For All Mankind.” “It is time for us to lock down the contracts that are going to serve generations of actors to come. Just like they did in 1960.”
The final time the actors’ union went on strike, in 1980 over the appearance of pay tv and residential video, it lasted greater than three months.
This time, the union says actors’ pay has been “severely eroded” by streaming and has warned that synthetic intelligence poses “an existential threat.” Ezra Knight, SAG-AFTRA New York native president, stated AI “threatened to remove real performers from the creative space.” Studios “want to hold on to their right to take my likeness, in one production… and use that likeness in perpetuity forever,” he warned.
“We want limitations to that, we want consent and to be able to give permission for that.” The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) says it had supplied massive pay raises and a “groundbreaking” AI proposal to actors.
— with AFP
Source: www.news.com.au
