Don’t Act, Reason #28: You will discover that less than two percent of the Screen Actors Guild makes a livable income as actors.

 Getting into SAG and paying your dues (the literal ones, not the figurative ones[1]) is no great shakes.  Yes, SAG does guarantee that if you get work you will get paid at least a few hundred bucks and you will receive that money in a timely fashion.  And if you make enough money, you will qualify for health insurance, which is good to have.  (I didn’t have any insurance for about seven or eight years, and as soon as I did I started seeing doctors, the result of which was realizing how terribly sick I am.)  But as you know SAG can’t get you work, and when it comes to negotiating for the little guy, SAG has no real leverage.  A big reason SAG is mostly powerless is because the membership is ludicrously (it’s that word again, Crazy Boat people!) large, and many of the people in the union aren’t actors at all.  I was once told of a dentist from the Midwest who showed off his union card (before I myself was in the union) that he acquired after doing a couple lines in a major motion picture that was shooting in his office; he paid fifty bucks every six months to maintain his membership because he thought it was neat he got to tell everyone that in addition to cleaning teeth, he was also a professional actor.  Yes, dentist guy, that’s so fucking neat. 

            Another reason that SAG has little negotiating power is because most of its celebrity members don’t really give a flying fajita what happens to the little guys.  These bazillionaire movie and television stars don’t go out and join picket lines when SAG is striking against commercial productions (and striking because actors in commercials are grossly underpaid.)  During a six month strike through which I had to live, only a couple of major celebrities made public appearances in support of the strike (Tom Hanks is an example.)  In fact, a number of celebrities were actually caught doing struck work (Sela Ward, Tiger Words and Elizabeth Hurley are all examples of what I believe is generally referred to as a “scab.”)  And did SAG throw these celebrities out of the union?  No, they didn’t.  (I’m pretty sure that’s what more effective unions do to members who work during a strike.  In fact, I think there are some unions that beat scabs senseless with baseball bats, although I don’t condone that sort of behavior.)  Every one of these celebrities was given a slap on the wrist in the form of a minimal fine, and I’m sure the money they were clearing after those fines was astronomical.

            Of course, I don’t know why I expect anything less from a Union with a board made up entirely of actors.  Actors are usually out of their minds, and even when they are not, their creative brains don’t allow room for keen organizational skills.  Plus, no one wants to piss off a major celebrity who could possibly prevent a potential acting gig.  (Except me, apparently, since I wrote this stupid book.)

            This brings around the frightening little statistic that I have heard over and over at auditions.  That’s right, I’m talking about that two percent figure at the top of this essay.  I called the union, even wrote the union a letter,[2] but they refused to confirm this number.  However, they didn’t deny it either.  This of course means that most of the membership doesn’t qualify for that health insurance I mentioned earlier.  Now hear this: a union in which the vast majority of the membership doesn’t work is patently ridiculous, folks. 

            On the upside, if that figure is true, I am in the top two percent of the screen actors guild—the same two percent that includes Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts.  I am so a star!  I am a member of the acting elite.  I am one of the most important people in the world![3]

            At the time of this writing, SAG is threatening a theatrical strike because the producers and studios don’t want to pay actors residuals on things like DVD sales and internet shows because it is “new media” and they don’t know how lucrative it will be over the course of the next few years (which is one of the most retarded things I have ever heard, given how long DVD’s and the internet have been around.  Considering that we live in a capitalist society, I’d imagine they’d have disappeared years ago if they weren’t lucrative.)  Now, even though I do feel actors are getting screwed here, I don’t think the strike is a good idea.  One, the writers’ strike that took place last year has hurt just about everyone in the business financially, and the recession has proven to be a double-whammy.  Unfortunately, I think in this instance the little guys have to be the big guy (which is pretty much always the case, isn’t it?) and accept the lousy contracts this time around to get things rolling again.  And then of course there’s also the issue of AFTRA, the other screen actors’ union that already accepted the lousy contract.  Now most of the new shows that are being produced are being produced as AFTRA shows, which essentially means SAG is bent over a barrel.  So, not only are there too many actors in the union, but there are also clearly too many goddamn unions.

            I am a member of both, by the way, if you are hiring.