It wasn’t more than a year or two ago that I was sifting through audition listings and making note of the upcoming projects I wanted to go in for and their respective pay rates. I remember thinking, Oh that’s good, any time I saw a contract minimum of $800/week or more. I even celebrated offers in which I received far less.
I had become so used to seeing salary minimums of $400/week or $100/day that my barometer for assessing compensation had become, in many ways, detached from financial reality. It’s a mindset I find unfortunately common among many of my fellow actors.
We operate in this world in which compensation is broken down by day or by week, such that we often fail to understand what those numbers look like in the context of a “true salary.”
For example, $800/week turns out to be just $40,000/year, before taxes, agent fees, and union dues—and only if you’re lucky enough to be working 50 weeks a year. And $400/week comes out to $20,000/year, while $100/day adds up to around $35,000/year.
If you’re anything like me, you may be somewhat shocked by these numbers. I had long been operating under the false assumption that I was making “good money” at
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