Olivia Colman: "if I was Oliver Colman, I’d be earning a fuck of a lot more"

[pink_disco]

Olivia Colman on Pay Disparity in Hollywood: "If I Was Oliver Colman, I’d Be Earning a F*** of a Lot More" https://t.co/vBqzFWXryh
- The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) March 24, 2024

Comments

[bigirons]

i wish we could have pay disparity conversations in the mainstream without it always being about actors lol all these people are getting paid way too much to play pretend

[screamingintune]

I think it's easy for people to use actors to talk about it because it's easy to perceive actors as doing about the same amount of work as each other. Like, for a lot of people, their inherent biases want to excuse pay disparities in other fields as a result of work ethic or if they're less awful, maybe education, but with acting people can perceive it as a raw talent that one cultivates fairly independently (whether or not that's actually true is up for debate)

tl;dr, I agree with your sentiment but I also think it's an easy shorthand way for people to understand the problem, even if it undermines it somewhat because the ones we hear about are usually way wealthier than any of us

however it's worthwhile to consider actors like the Orange Is the New Black cast who weren't even paid enough to cover their expenses. That was a cast of almost entirely women and a LOT of minorities.

[daijouboo]

The OINTB example is particularly galling when you consider how much a mulitbillion dollar corporation like netflix makes off their labor and how challenging many of the things they had to do were. Like there were so many scenes of people getting abused or assaulted or being put in situations that looked really unsafe. I hope that was all tv magic, but who can be sure?

[screamingintune]

for real, and Netflix was more than happy to allow the media and fans to heap praise on it for years for telling stories and featuring people that don't usually get featured. We didn't know they weren't being paid enough to pay rent and buy food! We didn't know they'd get fucking nothing for residuals! It was a HUGE show that built the platform and we all assumed these people were getting the career big break that would set them for life!

I mean sure, Danielle Brooks has done very well for herself, and so has Samira Wiley, and Kate Mulgrew will be fine because she's got Star Trek money, but the rest? The big opportunity WAS OITNB.

[daijouboo]

Totally, they were smugly patting themselves on the back for all that diversity meanwhile their on screen employees were being paid dust.

Acting is something you really have to love doing because why else would anyone work in a job with an 85% rate of unemployment (according to the US bureau of labor statistics) where only 12% of the people working are making more than $1000 a year?

[screamingintune]

you either have to love it, or, as is increasingly becoming the case in creative arts fields, already come from money. this is why indie musicians are all like, children of film producers or finance barons. it's depressing, how many brilliant artistic minds are we losing because no one can afford to pursue it? With residuals becoming shit, acting is getting worse.

[daijouboo]

100% It's getting less and less easy to finance movies and tv and most studios/streamers want something with a built in audience and big names. Everyone seems less willing to take risks on lesser known talents or more unconventional stories, that's why every trailer these days is just guns and explosions and hot people with botox making out. In general cultural is getting flatter and stupider and more hollow. As an obsessive consumer of all types of media, it's incredibly depressing.

[bigirons]

i grew up in the industry and still keep my guild memberships current for various reasons but my real work is in an entirely different field/i have zero aspirations to do anything related to entertainment. i'm not sure how they're getting the numbers but i would probably be included in that unemployment statistic if they're looking at like, how many SAG members are consistently on productions. my situation is not uncommon so i would imagine it's not even possible to get a realistic figure of the unemployment rates

[daijouboo]

That's a good point. Based on your experience do you think the unemployment rate would be lower or higher realistically?

[bigirons]

way lower. for the vast majority of people who have any level of 'professional' success with it, acting is ultimately still only ever going to be a hobby that occasionally pays. tons of people get their cards and pay their dues but aren't actually acting as a career. people used to be able to make a real living just off doing background and stand in full time but that hasn't been the case since the 90s and that kind of working actor doesn't exist anymore

[bigirons]

good point, makes a lot of sense

[arellaj]

IA but what often most influences people and changes their minds about things is to see it played out in media. For example, it's not a coincidence that after Woody Allen accused Mia Farrow of parental alienation, abusive men everywhere brought it up in their own custody battles even though it turned out to be bullshit.

[goldenhera]

I think it's an easy starting point to have conversations about pay disparity, but actors should not be leading the conversation about equal pay broadly.

[sillyskinny]

Idk. If you generate tens of millions of dollars for a studio, you should get your cut.

[sarahvma]

This. Industries are always going to vary in terms of pay. Arguing that actors should get paid less just leads to execs making more. They don't spread it out benevolently among the crew.

[belle_chouette]

Yeah, I think they need to … idk … make a video or an infographic that explains that bc otherwise us povvos are not going to be sympathetic towards them.