What do actors do about money?

Hi guys, I am off to Hungary tomorrow to film an ad and yes, it is very well paid work. In one week, I would be paid a lot of money - enough for me to not worry about money for the next couple of months. I have already done a piece a while ago about being self-employed; ie. being put in the position whereby if you work, you earn. If you don't work, you don't earn. Being an actor is very much being self-employed in the same way, so you may ask me, what do actors like you do about money when you're not working then? Well, I have come up with a short-list to reveal what the situation is like here in London where there is a very big showbiz industry and plenty of actors looking to make it big here.

Money, money, money

1. They do plenty of part time jobs. 

There are actors do plenty of part time jobs but these are usually not particularly well paid jobs because actors need to have the flexibility to simply not do those jobs when they get acting jobs or quite simply to take an afternoon off to go for an audition. The demands on the time of the actor usually confines the actors to unskilled work (like being a waiter, working as a shop assistant) where it really doesn't matter if you don't do your shift, someone else can easily do your work if you don't turn up that day. Compare that to a senior marketing manager who is handling the intricate details of an ad campaign for an important client: no one else can do his jobs because of the level of technical details involved. So such actors are usually in a pretty frustrating situation, doing work that they are ridiculously over-qualified for and being paid very little money for it: all this in exchange for the flexibility of being able to put acting work first.

Why do actors do such shitty work? Well, they need to pay the bills - there is an element of luck when it comes to acting work. Sometimes you can be very lucky and successful for a while, then you run into a dry patch where you get little or no acting work. Living in a big city like London, LA or New York is not cheap and actors must do something to pay the bills. Some actors are luckier, they have better paid part time work which includes giving tuition, giving private music lessons or some kind of flexible working arrangement with companies who are very understanding when it comes to them putting their acting first. Indeed, actors are hardly the only people in such a position. Think about mothers with very young babies: many of them desire to get back to work whilst balancing the needs of caring for a baby. Some of these mothers are extremely competent, very highly qualified and highly skilled - so in exchange for a pay cut, they get to enjoy flexible working hours.This kind of arrangement is actually quite common these days.

2. They have rich families.

Oh yeah, life isn't fair. Didn't you get the memo? I have met plenty of actors who have rich families who support them - now this can come in the form of rich parents or even a rich spouse in some cases. So for them, they can afford to focus entirely on their acting career whilst not worrying about issues like money - this actually does put them in a much more favourable situation. They can go to the most expensive drama schools, are a lot more flexible with their time, can afford to do more training and of course, they are spared the stress about paying the bills. It is far easier to become an actor if you happen to be rich. What can I say, some people are just lucky like that.

3. They have made it in the industry 

Some actors do become successful enough to get a constant stream of work but I stress that such people are indeed in the minority. The work that they have done in the past also generates income in terms of royalties that are paid out to them every time a work that they have done is dragged out of the archives and shown again on TV. People who are in such a position are usually more relaxed about money - so they wouldn't take on a shitty, low-paid part time job because they are confident that they would be able to get their next role fairly soon. Other successful actors have invested the money they have earned wisely and thus have other sources of passive income. That is an assumption based on nothing more than self-confidence and self-belief, but if they have a fairly decent track record in terms of getting paid work as an actor, then why not? The great thing about acting is that the work is generally well paid, the hardest part though is not quite knowing where your next role is. However, if you have a good agent working for you, sending you to the right auditions often enough, then you can feel more confident about your future in this industry.

I've been acting/modeling for 12 years already.

So where do I place myself? Well, I find it hard to put myself in just one of those categories. Yes I do other work apart from acting but mostly because (believe it or not) I am still in the process of trying out different things in life, trying to find out what I can turn to gold, what else is new out there which I have yet to discover. So I am doing other work not so much for money, but to make the most of my talents. I am actually pretty comfortable financially, to the point where I can quite easily retire today - if I never worked a day for the rest of my life, I have enough money to get by. That kinda puts me in the "rich family" category: my partner and I are rich because we have both accumulated enough wealth throughout our working lives and thus without any dependents, we have plenty of passive income from our substantial property portfolio to sustain us. And yes, I've done so much in the showbiz industry in the last 12 years that I do tend to keep getting rather well paid work as an actor, given my respectable track record. So by that token, I'm in all three categories: that just shows you how life is pretty complicated and it's hard to put people in convenient pigeonholes.

So there you go, I've got to get back to packing now. The driver is picking me up at 8 am tomorrow morning to go to the airport. I will not be blogging when I am in Hungary so there will be radio silence from me for a week. In the meantime, I hope you guys will keep the comments coming and I'll catch you upon my return. I am going to try to get some sleep now, at least I've finished packing. Phew. Thanks for reading and as they say in Hungary, sziasztok!