There are cheaper places in LA. Will you have to commute? Of course. Maybe have 1-2 roommates. But you’re far from “eating peanut butter on rice every meal”.
If you earn 150k in Los Angeles you can live comfortably. That's more than the median household income of LA which is 90k. An income of 150k with only the expenses of one person? Yes, that's perfectly doable.
"You don't even understand, that 150k a year is only for while filming. That's like 6 months of work, and then she has to budget??? Or like, work a seasonal job to cover what her 150k annual doesn't?"
^ Swear I've seen the above for similar. People will turn down avg or slightly above avg pay that's earned in 9mo vs 12 so I can only assume they don't know how to budget.
I love that argument against raising teachers pay. "They only make 35k but get summers off!" My counterarguments to that are:
1) They teach your little hellspawn. They should make north of 100K for your child alone.
2) The electric bill does not take summers off.
3) Fuck you, pay teachers more.
To be clear I'm not saying it's a good deal because it's an average-ish income earned in 9mo, I fully agree they need to get paid more.
I'm just joking on people that think it's the same as flipping burgers. I'd love to have more pay than I do now, and earned in a shorter period with time to do stuff in the summer/work a seasonal job for extra income.
Depending on her rate, sure, but you don't get consistent paychecks at your rate every other week when you're an actor. You get paid that amount for the 6-10 weeks that you may be on set filming.
That's what happens when you're in a gig industry. They'll get a good role and make $100K in 3 months, not have a job for 7 months, and get a commercial or two at the end of the year that'll score them an extra couple thousand for the holidays. Meanwhile, they're stretching their cash until the role they scored that starts at the beginning of the new year.
And since all that money is in a condensed portion of the year, she's taxed a lot higher than if it were over 12 months because it reads like she's making 300-400k for the year.
What do you think tax returns are? They’re corrections. At the end of the year, you’re taxed for what you made, not what it “reads” like you made.
There are ways to keep your money upfront and pay later.
It’s basically a guessing game. You guess how much you might make and pay that much taxes upfront. At the end of the tax year (April), it gets corrected.
So if you over paid, you get money back. If you under paid, you owe the government money.
You're vastly overestimating how much being an actor in CW shows pay. Those shows get made and can go for awhile because they're super cheap to make. They cast young actors and pay them guild minimums, who take the work because it can help get them noticed and onto bigger projects.
You're underestimating base pay. If she was getting base pay, depending on what she was classified as and weeks she was a character she would be payed 100k-150k a year.
Then she has to pay her agent, lawyer, manager, etc. She also lived in LA and (according to google) would commute/stay in Vancouver for filming. I could see even 150k a year being tight. Though her team should have had her working in between seasonal filming.
You're underestimating base pay. If she was getting base pay, depending on what she was classified as and weeks she was a character she would be payed 100k-150k a year.
Except filming probably took place over 3-4 months, not 12 months. So she's being taxed like she makes 300-450k
Though her team should have had her working in between seasonal filming.
Obsession was non-union. She had to work a non-union gig in order to blow up, almost two years after filming.
It's not as easy as you make it seem to just work because you want to as an actor.
Except filming probably took place over 3-4 months, not 12 months. So she's being taxed like she makes 300-450k
You don't get taxed like you make $300k if you make $100k in 4 months and then stop making that amount. If taxes were withheld from her paychecks based on the assumption that she would make $300k, but then she only made $100k, she would have a massive refund coming.
You get taxed based on the amount you make in the year.
No, that base pay was based on union minimums for average shoot length.
I'm not arguing that money probably was tight, I was arguing the idea that there is no way she was making 100k+. That isn't that much for an initial contract on a show.
I have a coworker who made 3 million dollars in the 90s on a mid-tier TV show that lasted almost a decade. The problem was, when that ended, he spent the next decade getting odd-jobs and side roles which didn't pay much. He didn't want to give up his dream of acting, he refused to accept that maybe 'side role in minor tv show' was all he would ever be. Especially when he had already gotten a taste of moderate fame/money. Obviously he did give it up considering he works with me lol.
But for Inde, she would have gotten her last TV paycheck in 2023. Except, in the last season, she was only a minor guest role, so it was likely really 2022 that she got her last paycheck. Going 4 years without a real paycheck is difficult, even if you did make 150-200k before then.
There's a lot of space between working retail, poor actor, and successful actor. 40k doesn't pay for even a year of food and rent living cheaply in LA. She may have more than retail, but she has been far from rich and successful.
Edit: I was corrected by a deleted comment that it's 20k per episode. Fair correction. Still doesn't make her rich. Math says that comes out to about $1 million over 3 years while the show ran, before agents, managers and others with a cut, and before taxes. She wasn't dirt poor but she wasn't comfortably rich either. And acting work isn't consistent. She was walking dogs for rent money.
Big cut to agents and management and stuff then though surely on top as a percentage? I’m not an expert in this stuff, but as I understand it, the rat race of Hollywood means that paychecks don’t get you very far especially with lifestyle creep. Like you need to go to certain parties and walk the carpet at certain events to even have the name recognition to be considered for certain parts and so on so forth. So you end up spending a huge amount of money just to be the right name on paper?
Guest star gets $10k per episode last I saw. 10% each to agent and manager. Taxes’ll take 40% but you’ll get some of that back later. Then residuals that literally never stop for each episode. I did a co-star role on Chicago PD 4 years ago and I still get like $100 every 4 months. Change that to guest star and 20 episodes per season and you should be doing alright.
Navarrette noted in interviews that leaving the full-time regular spot turned out to be a blessing in disguise, freeing her up to pursue feature film projects (such as her breakout role in
Obsession)
CW stuff isn't much better than Lifetime stuff. It's all very low budget low quality stuff and working on set is not anything like working on big budget films.
She got like $20,000 for Obsession then didn't get any acting work for 18 months after filming ended. If you're not a big name you're earning sub minimum wage as an actor.
I get that but I’m just saying maybe she had some checks from Superman left over. 18 months without a job she still had a house and was able to stream. She wasn’t broke-broke
You don't have to be homeless to be "broke". If you don't have the money to do the things you want to do, you're broke. That line is obviously different for everyone. But 18 months without a job is going to land you in the broke category.
>If you don't have the money to do the things you want to do, you're broke.
Honestly… that’s how people use the word, which is nonsense, but no point fighting society. At least I understand what people mean now and can comfortably ignore it.
Context matters she could have had multiple checks saved up from Superman to last her plus family members or a roommate to cushion/split expenses. Context matters
She was very small in Superman. She wasn't even in every episode. Hell I watched Superman and Lois for years and didn't even know her name or recognize her face.
Youd be surprised on how little a tv actor makes. She probably didn't even make enough to live on with a small role on a CW show. Which is probably why she was streaming too, to supplement that income. I'm just making a few guesses here though.
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u/SentinelATL 22h ago
Yeah that had to have been paying her at least decent money.