The Economics of Being a Working Actor (Barely)

Just because I’ve starred on TV and on stage doesn’t mean I have it made financially

photo by Alexey Kim

Let me start with this: I’m ridiculously grateful that I can call myself a working actor. The odds of my being able to say that are, well, not good. The competition is fierce, the jobs are out of your control—and you have to be comfortable with hearing an endless round of “no”s, or hearing nothing at all, just sending auditions out there, and the pay is...not what you think.

But nothing comes close to the sheer joy I feel when I step on stage or I hear “action.” Isn’t that the point in this one and only life you get? To do what you love? I think so. But to make that work, I have to hustle and struggle to make ends meet because it’s worth it. All of this chaos and worry? It’s worth it. I’ve done the corporate job, I’ve done the creative design job, I’ve done all kinds of jobs. Acting is my first love.

Getting to this point has been a series of sacrifices, both financial and personal. When I came back to acting 10 years ago, I quit a good job working in the communications department at a liberal arts college making sixfigures a year and mentally prepared myself for some form of poverty while I got my career up and running. I live in a small midwestern city that has no outlets for acting so all of my jobs require me to travel far from home (god, I miss living in New York City these days) for extended times, taking me away from my amazing wife and equally amazing cats.

And the pay...it’s okay. It’s certainly not steady. But when you’re working you can almost scrape by.

I do lot of work in theater and I would say the typical paycheck there—not New York—averages out to $1,000 a week. I did a show called Prince Faggot Off-Broadway last year that started at $1,200/week and when it transferred to commercial Off-Broadway that went up to $2,000/week. That’s pretty good when it comes to theater! If I ever am fortunate enough to make it to Broadway that number goes up a bit more unless I somehow become a “name,” i.e., famous. That’s when the theater money really starts to get good.

Television and film work is far more lucrative but really only for a very small number of working actors—the people you think of when you think of actors, y’know, stars. That’s not me. A day’s work on TV will earn you over $1,000 and if you can string some days together consecutively or, even better, a couple of weeks, well then you’re starting to talk about the kind of money most people think of when they think “actor.”

I did two weeks on a television pilot and made over $10,000 (that’s the entire run of a play sometimes!). When the show got picked up, I did a day here and a day or two there and over the course of that eight-episode season I made maybe another $10,000. At some point I will see some residuals but they won’t amount to much.

We’re about to start filming season two and I’m hoping to see a bump in my rate because I’m a recurring character crossing seasons. But we’ll see. I don’t have a lot of leverage in these instances and that, too, is a thing you have to deal with. The currency in those negotiations is, frankly, celebrity—how much, what kind, and how big? And when you don’t yet have that particular currency, you end up way lower on the financial food chain.

Last year, 2025, was easily my most financially (and artistically) successful year yet: A hit TV show and a hit Off-Broadway play and all told, I made enough money to land in lower middle class territory. In Wisconsin, that is, not New York.

And that’s when the going is good and I’m working. The reality is that getting a gig is part luck, part hard work, and part some magic I can’t even quantify. It almost feel like I’ve won the lottery when I’m told I booked a role.

When you’re not acting—and that’s most of the time—you have to figure out some other way to make money while waiting to land another gig. Working a regular job is impossible, because no employer wants to hear you might leave for two to three months, which is about how long a regular theatre run is with rehearsals and performances. I had the best luck working at REI, whose management is highly tolerant of people taking time off to do cool things, but my constant departures even wore their last nerve, and mine.

So I hustle. I take headshots, portraits—basically whatever anyone needs a camera for, I do it. I cat sit. I write the occasional essay. I’ve consulted on scripts, helped people move, driven art from one city to another, etcetera. I depend on the kindness of others and the generosity and support of friends and family. This way of life makes it almost impossible to budget: one month I might make $6,000, and another $500. My wife holds down the health insurance, thankfully, so at least I don’t have to worry about that.

Filing for unemployment comes with multiple issues and being paid in all the weird ways I am—1099s to W2s that reflect three months of work plus an occasional residual—seems to utterly baffle the unemployment people. I believe the fact that I’ve worked in four states in the past year shows I’m all about the hustle, but unemployment somehow wants more “proof” that I’m out there trying to get work. Believe me, I am!

Maybe one day I’ll make it big and score that fabulous Hollywood paycheck. I just won’t count on that happening any time soon. But I will be happy and fulfilled and that’s what counts I think.

Rachel Crowl is a two-time Obie award winning actor, musician, and photographer who has been creating one thing or another for a long time. She started acting after high school, eventually ending up in a repertory theater in New York City doing everything from Greek tragedies to Tom Stoppard verbal swordplay. After a time spent doing other things she found herself as a lead in an indie movie and started up again and has now worked in theater, film, television, video games, and scripted podcasts. She now lives in the Midwest (long story) with the best wife in the world and some cats.