The reason the contracts are so long is because actors are very spontaneous; we may want to do Shakespeare one day and be Porky Pig the next!
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Nowadays, in the contract that actors sign, you have to agree that you're going to do a certain amount of publicity-the hard part they don't pay you for.
You see, in America, it's quite standard for an actor to sign, at the beginning of a series, for five or seven years. The maximum any British agent will allow you to have over an actor is three years.
As an actor you have to wait for someone to cast you, so you're relying on the business.
People have this belief that actors are able to go out there and say, 'Oh I choose this job,' but most of the time we're just taking the job we can get. We don't just get offered thousands of jobs; we might earn one job a year and that's the one we'll take because we've got to pay the rent.
We have too many actors for the jobs available.
There is a vast difference in the pay package of every actor. Actors are also exploited at various levels, but when we are established, we get paid fairly well. But at times, if an actor asks for a hike, he/she may even get boycotted.
Actors are sellers, and I figured out a long time ago that if you wanted to work a lot, you had to be on the buying side.
A career in the theatre demands so much commitment.
I feel like most actors just dig and dig and work and work in whatever way they do to try to do as much as they can to portray a character in the limited time they have to play it, whether it's six months or one month or one week of work, you know.
The big thing for actors is the level of commitment.