Earn More MoneyJune 21, 2021August 2, 2021

How Much Money Can You Earn As An Actor/Actress

For many people, being on the big screen is a dream. For some, being on the smaller one (television) is good enough. Either way, many people have this aspiration. Due to this fact, acting has become one of the most popular and saturated industries. With only a small amount of people within the industry “making it”, being an actor can be quite difficult. Furthermore, earning a living can be quite difficult as well.

Many actors hold full or part-time jobs while pursuing their acting careers. For example, Hugh Jackman, Wolverine himself, used to be a teacher before he was a larger-than-life actor. Another example of this is Steve Buscemi. Steve Buscemi was actually a firefighter in the early 2001s. A little-known fact about him is that he assisted the New York Fire Department during the 9/11 attacks. Therefore, if you’re trying to get into acting, you will most likely need to find some sort of income to help you sustain your life until you become stable. However, in this article, we will take a look at your duties as an actor, how you can go about becoming one and how much you can potentially earn.

What Are The Duties Of An Actor/Actress?

As an actor/actress, you will have many duties. These duties vary depending on what role or industry you’re in. For example, an actor on a movie set may have different duties versus someone who stars in TV shows. However, the general duty of an actor remains the same. They have a script and need to act in a particular way that portrays a message that the writer or director envisions.

As an actor, you will have to go through hundreds of auditions of weeks and sometimes months. Furthermore, starting off, you may have to take roles that are not ideal. For example, you may apply to be a lead role in a play or short film. However, the role may get taken by someone else. Therefore, you may have to take other smaller roles in order to garner experience. As an actor, your duty is to always be learning and gaining experience, even if it’s through smaller, less important roles.

Aside from that, memorization is key. As an actor, your number one job is to memorize your script. Memorizing your script is crucial and it’ll help you be taken seriously as an actor/actress. There have been reports and interviews where seasoned actors say that they hate working with people who don’t know their lines. Furthermore, not knowing your lines can increase the time it takes to produce a film. Being an actor is just like any other job in that regard. You should know your lines and always be prepared. Being an actor is also a job that involves a lot of teamwork. Therefore, you will have to develop those teamwork skills.

How To Become An Actor/Actress?

Becoming an actor/actress is surprisingly not too difficult. With the internet progressively becoming more advanced, there are various websites that can help you gain exposure. For example, a popular website that can help you gain exposure is StarNow. It’s a website where you can create a profile, post pictures, and apply to various acting/modeling positions. Due to this fact, you do not need any formal education or training in order to become an actor.

Although this is true, this does not mean you should not have either of those things. Some sort of education and experience is definitely an asset within this industry. With the industry being highly saturated, having an asset that helps you stand out from the rest is highly advantageous. For example, if you went to various acting classes, you may beat out many people who are also auditioning for the same role. This can be because you’ve developed your acting skills further or the fact that you used advanced techniques within acting. While you can learn this stuff on your own, formal education and experience will provide something critical to your journey. Feedback.

Feedback can help you take your acting skills to another level. Let’s say you’re performing a scene wrong and you’re unaware. Your teacher can identify the problem and work with you on a solution. This will help you not make that mistake ever again.

If you don’t want to go to university or college to develop your acting skills, you can go to other programs. There are both free and paid acting programs that you can attend that’ll give you a lot of valuable information.

If you are really looking to take acting seriously, you will almost always need an agent. Now, one thing to keep in mind is that there are many agents out there. Just remember, a rule of thumb is to only hire an agent that takes a commission, not one that charges a fee. They should get paid when you do. Aside from that, agents are people who tend to have connections that you wouldn’t. With these connections, they find auditions and opportunities that can help you gain experience or exposure.

There have been many people who have broken into the mainstream due to their agent finding them a role that garners decent exposure. While you can definitely find an agent, not every agent will accept you. Typically, agents will go with someone who they believe to have potential. This is because you are their way of earning money. Therefore, getting an agent when you’re just starting out will be difficult. Experience, personality, and exposure will help you get an agent.

To conclude this section, once you’ve gained some experience, it will most likely be a good idea to find an agent. That way you can advance in your field faster.

How Much Can You Earn As An Actor/Actress?

When it comes to how much you can earn, the amount varies. As I stated previously, the entertainment industry is saturated. Therefore, you will most likely work as a freelancer. Finding opportunities near you or, sometimes far away. Of course, you most likely know the potential for an actor is astronomical. If you make it into the mainstream, you can find yourself making millions of dollars annually. However, this is not always the case since such a small amount of actors actually become well-known. Fortunately, there are surveys that show how much money actors make. Albeit, in a smaller sample size.

Above is a chart showing how much money you can earn as an actor and the varying hourly wages. During the middle of your career, you’ll most likely earn the most, at $98.50 per hour. If you were to convert this into yearly, it would be over $200,000 per year. Of course, this is is you have steady work. Later on in your career, you will most likely be acting less. Therefore, you may see a decline in the amount of money you earn. However, the is unique to every individual. You could very well make more money later on in your career than you would in the middle. Therefore, don’t let the amount of money dissuade you from pursuing what you want. The amount you earn will be justified by your talent and experience.

Shameed Chris Khan

Shameed is just a man on a mission to help those around him gain financial success. Obsessed with writing about all things finance, this GTA native is constantly learning and sharing his experiences with others.