Answers from The Working Actor

12 Financial Matters

All freelance workers can expect to face some degree of financial uncertainty, simply because freelancing, by its very nature, offers no long-term guarantees of employment. For actors, this uncertainty and unpredictability can be especially acute.

Actors are particularly vulnerable workers for numerous reasons. First, there’s the well-known supply-to-demand imbalance in the acting profession—way too many actors for way too few jobs. Clients seeking an office manager may sort through five or six candidates; clients seeking an actor may sort through twenty, thirty, or even hundreds. There’s also a discrepancy in the reasonable expectation of repeat clientele. Most freelancers who are good at their jobs can safely predict repeat ...