Audition Pay Toolkit

The State of the Casting Process

Our History page outlines how auditions have steadily become more work for performers and less expensive for producers. It was not always considered necessary to request hundreds of long, unique, self-taped work samples in order to cast a role. While self-tapes have forced a recent reckoning with the current casting process, we hope this history contextualizes this moment in a pattern of exploitation. 

Looking ahead, Audition Pay will force the casting process to respect the value of our time and give performers more meaningful access to casting. Our member Christian Telesmar created this graphic to illustrate how. Some currently under-utilized casting methods–like cold reads and general meetings–guarantee that you’re seen by casting, which mass self-tape requests do not. 

SAG-AFTRA member Charlie Bodin created a spreadsheet of roles cast by major studios and networks before the pandemic. These numbers give a sense of how many actors are needed in the casting process. Audition Pay would mean more paid work per role.

Here are more sources for the state of the casting process today:

• Deadline: Requesting 100-500 self-tapes per role is the new “industry standard,” per one casting director

• Variety: Requiring actors to provide readers in self-taped auditions has saved producers an estimated $250 million annually

• Puck News on the costs of self-tapes

• Deadline on the costs of self-tapes

• Variety on actors’ demands for self-tape regulations