Opinion: I’ve sacrificed for a Hollywood acting career. This is where I draw the line

Opinion by Mehdi Barakchian

Editor’s note: Mehdi Barakchian is a New York-born actor, comedian and producer who has appeared in numerous screen productions. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion on CNN. 

Earlier this month, striking writers ratified a deal with major Hollywood studios that was greeted with excitement throughout the entertainment community. In a year of multiple strikes, it represented a major win for workers fighting growing income inequality.

Now, it’s the actors’ turn to reach a deal with studios — except that the studios have suspended talks with SAG-AFTRA, the union representing us.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) walked away from the bargaining table on October 11 and studio executives said they were suspending discussions because they were “no longer moving” forward “in a productive direction.” In short, the actors and studios remain in a stalemate.

In case you haven’t followed the actors’ strike, the AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA are negotiating revenue sharing and policies around use of artificial intelligence (AI), among other items. Until we get a deal, actors like me remain on the picket lines. And as long as we’re on the picket lines, a lot of great shows won’t be filmed, and a lot of folks who rely on this industry will be out of work.

Maybe you’re thinking “wait, I thought actors make tons of money?” Well, sure, it can be millions and millions of dollars — if you’re an A-lister. Most of us don’t come anywhere close.

In my case, you may not know my name, but you might recognize my kind-of-familiar face from one of the shows I’ve appeared in. Some have been pretty big hits over the last five years, including the supernatural drama series “Manifest,” the psychological thriller series “You,” and “Modern Love,” an anthology series about human connection.

I’m fortunate to have enough success acting full time that I’ve been able to pay my bills and acquire health insurance. Back when my bookings were really booming, I proposed to my now wife and added a dog to our family — the typical sorts of things people do when they have financial stability.

But it’s never been easy for the average actor to afford the conventional trappings of middle-class life — and it’s getting harder all the time. One big problem for actors is that the business model for Hollywood film productions has completely changed, but the contracts have not. That’s why actors went out on strike in July, a couple of months after the writers did.

Suffice to say, my not working for the past few months has been a financial hardship on my family. But the roughly 160,000 actors on strike are enduring what we hope to be a short-term pain for long term gains in pay, benefits and job protection. We miss the profession that we love, but we can’t continue to work in conditions that compensate us less than our due and in an industry that fails to safeguard our careers as it embraces AI in a way that potentially could threaten our livelihoods.

A lot of Hollywood’s biggest stars are on the picket lines too, lending us their moral support, for which I’m grateful. They are fighting with us for fair wages in an industry where the average salary in 2022 was a paltry $27.73 per hour for actors in California, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. But most actors don’t work a 40-hour work week, 12 months a year, so those stats may not fully capture just how precarious our livelihood is.

Acting is a notoriously tough profession to break into and maintain long-term security. Most of us who could were likely able to make a living did so because we were paid a fair wage based on viewership.

Prior to the advent of streaming, actors like me relied on residuals paid out based on how often we appeared in a show and how successful it was. That meant essentially, the more views, the more money we earned.

But the contracts we are operating under do not consider the dramatic increase in streaming numbers and the decline of network and cable viewership. In short, actors work much more to make ends meet and still sometimes find ourselves earning less.

When streaming first showed up, it had a lot of work to do to draw and maintain audiences. At the time, most of us were working in cable and network TV, which is where the audiences were. That large viewership, and the usage residuals this model provided, is why a lot of us were able to make a living. But the business has completely changed.

Last year, streaming in the US surpassed cable and network TV in viewership. Many actors depend on residuals from previous programs but in the streaming era, that income has fallen precipitously.

This immense shift has changed the model, and the AMPTP, which represents movie and television producers, including Disney, Warner Brothers and Netflix (CNN’s parent company is Warner Bros. Discovery, which produces movies and television shows.) And even as studios say that they’re being squeezed financially, CEOs continue to earn tens of millions of dollars.

Meanwhile, SAG-AFTRA says 86% of its members don’t qualify for health care coverage through the union, because they don’t qualify under SAG-AFTRA’s income threshold, which is about $26,500 a year.

What’s more, many of us live in the most expensive cities in the country like Los Angeles and New York, because that’s where the work and industry infrastructure exists. The average one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles rents for about $3,000 per month, according to rent.com, which comes to $36,000 per year. So, if you’re a Hollywood actor barely scraping by — well, you can do the math.

Another major sticking point is how the industry would like to use AI. The AI proposal from the AMPTP impacts the most marginalized and financially vulnerable performers in the entertainment industry — background actors.

Obviously, the way in which actors’ images will be used is a hugely important issue. SAG-AFTRA negotiators say the proposed contract would pay background actors for a day’s work (they currently are paid at the rate of less than $200 per day), scan their body and use that image any way they want for the rest of the project. The union has also said that the studios want to own that scan to use for perpetuity, without the consent of the background actor and without providing further compensation. The AMPTP rejected this claim, and has said that they will require consent from the actor and the replica would only be used in the movie they signed up for.

But here’s a sobering thought: AI technology is still incredibly young. We have no way of understanding or knowing what can be done with this information in 10, 20, or 30 years. The potential is limitless and protections for real people need to be put in place now.

You might be thinking, “With all your reservations about the way the business of Hollywood is run, why don’t you just get a different job?” I’d turn the question around and ask you, “Wouldn’t you fight for the job you love?”

Acting is my job. It’s more than that – it’s my passion. I’ve done thousands of auditions, performed thousands of hours on stage to hone my craft, finished hundreds of hours of really mediocre improv classes (and some good ones too) and made a cross-country move away from everyone and everything I know to pursue this career.

I think a lot of people were reminded of the value of on-screen entertainment in their lives during the Covid-19 pandemic. The stories we watched on big and small screens gave us something else to talk about — a way to escape the scary reality just outside our front door.

Several Hollywood A-listers, including Ben Affleck, Emma Stone and George Clooney, met with SAG-AFTRA leaders this week after the studios suspended negotiations. They’ve made overtures to try to end the strike, according to news reports; I’m hoping that all that star power helps get the talks back on track. The idea that underpaid union workers should “get a different job” while industry executives earn tens of millions of dollars feels like a post-apocalyptic show written by AI. But here we are — in real life.

Let’s be clear: this fight is about the entire ecosystem that makes your favorite onscreen entertainment run. This includes actors like me, but also casting directors, costume departments, lighting crews, camera operators, producers, teamsters, make-up artists and so many more professionals with real lives, real families and real professional goals. None of us non-executives  get rich working in this industry.

I couldn’t be happier for my extended family in the Writers Guild of America whose sacrifice and determination allowed them to strike a deal with the studio execs that their leaders are happy with. Until the actors can say the same, you won’t find my kind-of-familiar face on screen, but on the picket line.

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