I wonder how much money actors make? I don’t mean the megastars, I mean just your average medium-sized stars.
Random example: Gareth Thomas. Played the title character in Blake’s 7, which must have occupied him for the three-and-a-bit years he was in it back in the late-70s, and made him famous. Since then IMDB lists a couple of things per year (most recently an episode of Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood — maybe ‘cos it’s set in Cardiff and he’s Welsh?). Even assuming he does other stuff such as radio or theatre (which he does, according to Wikipedia) and voiceovers and TV adverts, I wonder if he lives comfortably? I assume so, or he’d have found another job.
Do short acting jobs pay well enough that it pays the bills for the quiet times? I suppose many part-time actors end up having to take day jobs as well.
And when the big stars attend the openings of their movies, do they hang around and watch? If so they must get pretty bored with seeing it over and over again.
I assume Barry Humphries is pretty well off. Another full-page bit in The Sunday Age again yesterday, grumble…
3 replies on “Are actors rich?”
Very interesting train of thought. When you consider this, you realise why people stay in the same role in Neighbours or some other soap for so long. It’s constant work and money.
Some that leave the soaps to find ‘better’ work elsewhere quite often end up doing little else. Course, there are the few that do well; ie Kylie etc.
The person I always wondered about was Alex Wileman, who for years did the lotto results. She was on Telly for 6 minutes a week – did that 6 minutes make a living for her?
Then there’s the stories of TV stars being “shelved” by networks. These were stars who used to have shows, but are paid retainers to keep them from appearing on other networks. I dimly remember one guy from the 90’s who was reportedly shelved for $300K p/a.
Michael Caine says the high pay packs they get when they make it big is it to compensate for being being so poor while they learn their craft. Make sense in a way I suppose …