April Billingsley

April Billingsley Instagram – Despite most non-industry people I meet thinking I must be rich because I’m on tv 🤣… The truth is, 98% of us don’t get paid enough to live from our acting work. So, we almost all have second jobs. I may easily spend 10-20hrs a week learning and taping auditions, for free, because I love it. And I’m grateful, successful, and one of the really lucky ones to then get hopefully ONE job every few months when I’m rocking it! And, that job is usually a union minimum job. If the union didn’t exist, every acting job until someone got super famous would probably be free, “for credit” or “for exposure” despite our years of skill and talent. When I book a job, whether I have one line or a huge monologue, I get paid per time spent on set for, which ranges from one day to two weeks. And I am so grateful to the union that there is a union minimum and that I have a pension and protections on set and that they help me get paid fairly. If the project does well, I may get lucky and get some good residuals… but if it is a streaming project, those residuals will be much smaller than a network TV job. MUCH Smaller. That means booking something on HBO pays a lot less for most actors than booking something on ABC really for no reason at this point. And now, most jobs are streaming versus network. I have a lot of working actor friends… truthfully, NONE of us can rely on acting to support us. For pretty much all of us, it is some good extra money until you book something like a series regular, but even that, only a series regular on a show that actually lasts and ups your fame enough to continue to get great jobs. We are highly skilled and great at what we do. And, we do it because we love it and are passionate about it. And, what we do is also extremely VALUABLE. We deserve to have a better CHANCE at being able to make a living acting. Let’s bring it on #sagaftra, so we don’t have to have second jobs in the future! | Posted on 13/Jul/2023 22:07:26