Casting call: ““Unfortunately we’re not able to offer a fee on this occasion.”

Sadly this type of casting call is one that I’m all too used to seeing. At least 75% of castings will
contain the above sentence or a wonderfully inventive version of it (such as the incredible ‘This is
a no-pay experience!’) It’s unfortunately become a fact of acting life and I’ve become as skilled as
sifting through castings as I have at rifling through sandwiches for rogue tomatoes. Directors will try
and soften the blow by telling you that you’ll get a credit to put on your CV (gee, thanks) and that
they’ll be providing you with food on set. On-set catering can be a thing of beauty (pizza) but it can
also be an utter horror made of stale sandwiches. Apparently actors can live on credits and bread
alone. If only landlords, phone companies and councils could be fobbed off in the same way.

Unpaid work has become a rather aggressive disease in the acting world. What was once the domain
of film students and wannabe filmmakers; it has now entered the world of television. And this is
a worrying development. I understand that however much they’d like to, students and smaller
production companies can’t always afford to pay people. The ethics bother me because I believe
that if you can’t afford to pay everyone then you probably shouldn’t be making the piece in the first
place but that’s an argument for another day. Unpaid work happens and sadly, just like the damp in
our flat, I have to deal with it for now and watch it ever so slowly ruin me. I should also admit that
I’ve taken on my fair share of unpaid work in the past. Unfortunately there are times when you have
very little choice and so you can either do nothing or take on some unpaid work in the hope that
it might just get you spotted. It won’t, but you never know when that top agent is going to turn up
at a secondary school in Northampton to watch you prance about telling kids about the dangers of
heroin. But now the bigger companies have jumped on the bandwagon and suddenly everything is
starting to topple over.

There have been a string of very high-profile companies that have recently started advertising
unpaid or expenses only work. And when I say ‘high-profile’ I mean the type of companies
that produce widely watched primetime programmes that air on terrestrial channels. These
are companies that clearly have plenty of money, or at least enough cash to make sure that all
performers are fairly paid. When they start offering unpaid work, what kind of message does that
send out to all the other companies? Apparently it’s now perfectly acceptable for these businesses
(one of whom made a profit of £471m last year) to get performers to work for free. But these
companies forget that actors often have a lot of time on their hands so it doesn’t take too long
before they’re ousted via the beauties of social networking. But what happens when they get found
with their devious trousers around their tight-fisted ankles? Well, what has happened recently
is that they make like George Osborne and u-turn. However, they don’t then promise to do the
honourable thing and actually pay actors. Oh no. Their reaction is to say that they will instead be
casting friends, family or employees. That’s what this profession has been downgraded to. Actors
are now regarded so poorly that we can be instantly replaced with the make-up artist’s cousin and
the focus puller’s university mates the second we start to complain. We find ourselves so low on the
career ladder that we’ve now been downgraded to the lackey that just holds the ladder and watches
everyone else climb up it.

So what this means is that actors will yet again be forced into unpaid work as they desperately try
to keep hold of a career that’s more slippery than a greased-up seal. We continually find ourselves
being held to ransom where we can either ‘shut up and put up’ or keep fighting and risk the chance
of never working again. Just like the next actor, I’d love the exposure that a primetime programme
would offer but never at my own expense and certainly not just so an exec can save a few precious
pennies and ensure that their bonus is intact for another year. Why should they get to go on exotic
holidays when I’m left wondering how to survive for the next week on a tin of chopped tomatoes
and a rapidly ageing nectarine? It’s at its lowest, meanest level and until all actors make a stand against these companies, all we’re doing is encouraging them to turn our already fragile
industry into a laughing stock.