As the Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strike continues, the latest star to go public with a small residual cheque is actor William Stanford Davis.
The 71-year-old star of Abbott Elementary, who was upped to a series regular last year, took to social media at the weekend to reveal he had received a recent payment for three cents, for his role in an unnamed show – holding his cheque up to the camera to demonstrate.
In his video, Davis said:
“I’ve been a member of the Screen Actor’s Guild for 32 years, and for those 32 years, my wages haven’t increased at all. I want to give you an example of what a residual cheque looks like. I showed this to my brother and he fell over laughing… it ain’t f**king funny.
The amount? Exactly three cents.
“That’s a residual cheque,. I’m not going to say who produced it, because I can’t tell you who these cheap motherf***ers are. But anyway, I’m standing in solidarity with the writers, and we’re going to be on strike until we get what we need to make a living.”
In the same video, Davis revealed another cheque – this one for five cents.
“You see that? Can you believe that? That’s [five] cents. The postage, the paper, everything costs more than that. That’s what they think of us as actors. This is why we’re on strike for better wages, for better residuals [and] for a piece of the subscription and to not give in to AI.”
Davis is not the first actor to speak out about the struggle of living on residual payments for work in successful shows. This is Us star Mandy Moore spoke out last week to say she had sometimes received cheques for “very tiny [amounts], like 81-cent cheques,” and several members of the cast of Orange is the New Black said they had had to keep their day jobs while starring in one of the world’s most popular TV series.
Moore spoke from the picket line last week, saying: “We’re in incredibly fortunate positions as working actors having been on shows that found tremendous success in one way or another … but many actors in our position for years before us were able to live off of residuals or at least pay their bills.”