Auditions Are Work, and Audition Pay is already in the SAG-AFTRA contract. A basic exchange of fair compensation for valuable labor shouldn’t feel radical, and yet Audition Pay challenges long-held beliefs about performers’ work, based on how the entertainment industry has historically undervalued it. We hope this website encourages performers to educate themselves on Audition Pay, assert the value of their work, and talk honestly about the reality of our profession.
Below, we share our thoughts in response to questions we’ve heard about Audition Pay so far. We hope this is just the beginning of a thorough, union-wide discussion, and will update this page with new questions.
Do you have a question you don’t see here? Contact us.
Frequently Asked Questions
I’m confused. SAG-AFTRA’s website says we’re only owed Audition Pay for camera tests, if we’re kept waiting at an audition, or if we’re expressly required to memorize lines.
Correct, but that’s not what our contract says. In response to growing awareness of the Audition Pay provision, SAG-AFTRA issued a statement in September 2022 that addressed how the union currently enforces the contract. The statement limits the circumstances in which the union will pursue Audition Pay to in-person screen tests, overtime waits, and when performers are “expressly required” to memorize lines. Our contract does include pay for camera tests and overtime waits (in addition to Audition Pay), but the memorization requirement is nowhere to be found in our contract.
The statement was drawn up by the TV/Theatrical Standing Committee–an anonymous, internally appointed, non-elected body left over from the 2020 contract negotiations. It not only devalued our wages and undermined the negotiating power of the Audition Pay provision; it made a significant change to our ability to collect contractually owed wages without giving members a chance to vote. This process was undemocratic. Now some producers are exploiting this loophole with memorization disclaimers.
The statement also acknowledges that “SAG-AFTRA believes that audition pay language can be read to require payment in circumstances beyond those...and reserves the right to pursue those interpretations in the future.” Click here to send an email to current SAG-AFTRA leadership expressing support for Audition Pay and demanding that they rescind the September 2022 statement.
If SAG-AFTRA enforces Audition Pay, won’t there be fewer auditions, and therefore less opportunity?
Auditions are work, not simply “opportunities,” and work should be paid. While studios may react to Audition Pay by reducing the volume of audition requests, we don’t believe that having as many actors doing as much unpaid work as possible makes for a healthy profession or community. Audition Pay is already in our contract, and unions protect workers by enforcing our contracts.
Many of today’s casting “opportunities” are not even real. Producers solicit auditions even when they already have an offer out to a performer. Casting professionals have publicly said that producers now require them to solicit 100-500 auditions per role, making it impossible for each performer’s work to be truly considered. Producers can solicit work from performers they don’t intend to hire in order to meet all kinds of pre-production needs, whether it’s to develop material, or attempt to meet diversity quotas before selecting a less inclusive cast. Studios also use our unpaid auditions as leverage to negotiate rates down on offers, pitting us against each other to underpay all of us, including the performer hired for on-set work. Requesting hundreds of performers to sacrifice their time and money for a nonexistent job opportunity is not just disrespectful; it devalues our workforce.
While the self-tape cattle calls appear to have a democratic spirit, most performers cannot afford to do endless free work. This model already limits the pool of candidates, or else requires performers to subsidize auditioning with several side-jobs. Without payment or transparency from production, we can’t know if we really do have a legitimate chance at a role. The casting process has become a lottery, and auditioning has become a very expensive hobby.
With Audition Pay, every audition will be a paid job and a meaningful opportunity, with your performance being adequately considered. We will be fairly compensated for putting our lives on hold to make self-tapes, and for all the costly labor and equipment they require. Audition Pay means that producers will be literally invested in your audition, and you’ll be able to invest more in them, too, whether that’s in equipment, childcare, readers, self-tape studios, software, or coaching.
We believe Audition Pay will make interactions with casting more meaningful on every level. Since general meetings and cold reads will remain free, performers will not need to craft and tape entire performances to be considered for the kinds of roles where casting “knows within seconds” if an actor is right. Audition Pay should also make other forms of talent discovery more robust. Our union’s contract with the producers already mandates that they send hired casting directors to showcases jointly sponsored by SAG-AFTRA and the Casting Society of America, or else spend a comparable amount of time conducting general meetings. Per our contract, the Industry Advancement and Cooperative Fund is also responsible for providing performer showcases. Union leaders and members can continue to develop new ways for SAG-AFTRA to service members’ casting needs.
If employers have to pay for auditions, won’t they only give opportunities to known actors, making most roles “offer-only”?
The studios must create diverse, realistic worlds to produce successful movies and TV shows. Producers will always need to hire new faces from an ever-expanding pool of talent–otherwise, they could have pivoted to a less labor-intensive, offer-only casting model years ago. Producers are already able to solicit as many auditions as they want while they already have an offer out to another performer.
We don’t believe the union ultimately protects less credited performers by ensuring they continue to perform endless unpaid work through free auditions. It is SAG-AFTRA’s responsibility to protect the wages and working conditions of all its members, veteran and inexperienced. The current casting process harms both. Scores of our members work second and third jobs. The vast majority do not qualify for union health insurance or pensions. After decades in this industry, senior performers who had earned lifetime coverage have been kicked off the health plan. The auditions they need to perform to get on-set jobs now require more work than ever before. The wages for those on-set jobs have dwindled. It is possible to give an Oscar-winning performance in a high-grossing Best Picture winner and still not qualify for health insurance.
The performers who get their foot in the door through unpaid auditions will soon discover that our current wages and benefits make for very few lasting, healthy careers. Audition Pay will make performing a sustainable profession. Joining together to fight for fair wages will make our union more powerful.
Will enforcing Audition Pay change the casting process for the worse?
The casting process will continue to change no matter what. Historically, these changes have offloaded more labor and costs onto performers, for the employers’ benefit. In the past three years alone, studios have radically transformed the casting process with complete disregard for the workers who do the labor of casting and auditioning. Requiring us to provide readers alone If we do not assert the value of auditions now, we will continue to be exploited and financially drained.
Enforcing Audition Pay will correct the power imbalance in the casting process. It will force producers to acknowledge that casting is a two-way street. Rather than continue to view us as paying customers, they will have to recognize the value of our work.
Most importantly, we shouldn't need to be able to predict the future of the entertainment industry in order to demand our contractually owed wages. Work is work, and studios have gotten a free pass for too long.
If Audition Pay is enforced, will performers of color get fewer auditions, given that we are already underrepresented in many major movies and TV shows?
The entertainment industry needs performers of color to create successful shows and movies. Racial and ethnic representation is steadily increasing, and in 2022, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences enacted a representation and inclusion requirement for Best Picture category, with one of the many standards being 30% of the film cast must be from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group. Studios and networks will continue to seek diverse casting, and auditions will be proportional to industry trends.
We want to emphasize that changing the number of auditions doesn’t change the number of roles being cast. Producers will need to be more intentional about who they call in, rather than requesting performers to do free work at mass scale.
The current casting process enables producers to solicit auditions from performers whom they have no intention of hiring. This has allowed some to solicit free work from performers of color to claim that they tried to form a diverse cast–only to justify selecting a less inclusive one. If producers have to pay for auditions, they will act with a greater responsibility toward performers. With Audition Pay, all performers will not only know our work is being adequately considered, but be fairly compensated for our work.
Shouldn’t we trust the process? Why can't we just believe our self-tapes are being seen?
“Trust the process” is not payment, transparency, or a career plan. If an employer is fairly compensating you for your work, they probably don’t need to tell you to “trust the process.”
Will casting directors have to pay for auditions?
No. Producers are responsible for Audition Pay, not casting directors. Audition Pay is in our contract with the studios.
How do casting directors feel about Audition Pay?
We can’t speak for casting professionals. We encourage performers to see fair compensation and the enforcement of our contracts as our most basic rights as unionized laborers. Audition Pay is between SAG-AFTRA and the studios, and we don’t need to anticipate other industry professionals’ evolving knowledge of it to demand fair payment for our work.
Casting professionals are members of our sister union, the Teamsters, and both our unions have contracts with the studios (a.k.a. the AMPTP). No union worker should undermine another’s contracted rates. We are all stronger when our contracts are enforced and our owed wages are paid. Unpaid work and selective contract enforcement hurts us all. In fact, both performers and casting professionals have suffered as studios have offloaded more of the casting process onto us all. Should casting professionals determine that employers must pay them more for their work in this process, we are prepared to support their demands as well.
Can the entertainment industry afford Audition Pay?
Yes. The studios can and will increase production budgets when contractually obligated. For example, required COVID-19 safety protocols increased production budgets by 5%. By contrast, Audition Pay will increase production budgets by 1%, based on pre-pandemic audition volume. As the SAG-AFTRA Return to Work Agreement lapses, productions are either minimizing or removing COVID-19 protocols and their costs.
While we understand the impulse to worry that Audition Pay will affect production budgets, we encourage performers to focus on our own rights as workers and as a union. The studios need performers and auditions. We’re more powerful when we assert the value of our work, not when we agree to bear the brunt of employers’ cost-cutting methods. What if instead of asking if studios can afford Audition Pay, performers ask if we can afford to keep doing unpaid work?
What will my representatives think about Audition Pay?
We can’t speak for representatives. However, since Audition Pay is commissionable, it will be a valuable revenue stream for performers’ representatives. As more entertainment corporations consolidate (including the major talent agencies), Audition Pay commissions will be especially meaningful to smaller and mid-sized representation businesses. In recent years, performers’ dwindling wages have created more pressure for representatives to take on more clients and therefore more work. Empowering performers empowers our representatives as well.
Does Audition Pay mean that lower-budget productions won’t be able to afford to cast their projects?
No. Audition Pay is in our TV/Theatrical Codified Basic Agreement. Independently produced, low-budget productions are subject to their own Low Budget Agreements that the union may adjust in any way without negotiation with the AMPTP. Productions will still be able to conduct cold reads and general meetings for free, or consult performers’ past work.
How do we get back pay for previous auditions?
Since the union has no automated procedure for Audition Pay, you currently have to file a claim to receive your owed payment. There’s a 6-month statute of limitations on claims, so that’s as far as back pay can currently go. We plan to post instructions to file a claim on this website, but ultimately want to pressure SAG-AFTRA leadership to create automated procedures so members don’t have to deal with a claims process.
We also need them to rescind their September 2022 statement which said the union will only pursue Audition Pay when performers are expressly required to memorize lines. That rule isn’t in our contract, the one we all vote on, but since they released that statement, some of us learned firsthand that our claims wouldn’t be pursued because the auditions didn’t explicitly require memorization. If you file a claim now, it’s not guaranteed you’ll be paid—though there is certainly value in more of us trying and showing the union what we’ve all lost.
It is devastating to think about the wages we were entitled to and didn’t receive. Since the options for back pay are currently so limited, we’re focused on making Audition Pay the norm now. This means pressuring SAG-AFTRA leadership to 1) rescind that statement, 2) keep the provision in the contract in negotiations this June, and 3) enforce the provision through automated procedures. Click here to send them our pre-written email with those demands.