Mandy Moore revealed she gets paid next to nothing when fans stream her hit show “This Is Us” — despite the Emmy-winning series being one of the most popular TV shows in the last seven years.
While picketing outside Disney in Burbank, Calif. Tuesday, Moore — who played Rebecca Pearson in the drama from 2016 to 2022 — talked to the Hollywood Reporter about the importance of the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike.
“The residual issue is a huge issue,” Moore, 39, told the outlet. “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.”
In fact, Moore said she received “very tiny, like 81-cent checks” from the streaming residuals for the NBC series — which was acquired by Hulu in 2017.
“I was talking with my business manager who said he’s received a residual for a penny and two pennies,” the actress added.
Moore was joined on the picket line by “Scandal” star Katie Lowes, who said she too has been making literal pennies since Netflix obtained her show’s streaming rights.
“If you are someone who has been fortunate enough in our positions to do 120-plus episodes of a successful show in previous years — 10, 15, 20 years ago — that re-airing would be the thing that could sustain you on years where I did this smaller project or I wanted to go do a play or you have kids and you have a family to provide for,” Lowes said of the residuals model.
“And that just not a reality anymore. The entire model has changed.”
The current SAG-AFTRA strike — which comes on the heels of the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) strike — went into effect last week after the organization failed to reach an agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the trade association that represents more than 350 major studios and streaming giants.
Soon after, Fran Drescher, the president of SAG-AFTRA, released a statement to the labor union’s 160,000 members, saying they had “no choice” but to go on strike.
“What’s happening to us is happening across all fields of labor … [Employers] forget about the essential contributors that make the machine run,” she said in an impassioned press conference. “We have a problem, and we are experiencing that right at this moment.”
“We demand respect … because you cannot exist without us.”
Dozens of actors have since joined in on the protests and started speaking out about the realities of trying to make it in Hollywood, including actor Luke Cook.
Cook, who is best known for playing Lucifer on Netflix’s “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina,” explained to Pvnew that most actors cannot actually make a living from acting — and that if they want things to change they need to “get some balls.”
“You don’t want to piss off the bosses, like your future bosses. I understand that sentiment, I really do,” he told us. “But I just think we need to be a little more courageous right now. If we band together, they can’t shoot us all down.”
In a now-viral TikTok video, he also explained what the actors’ strike is all about — and how most people in Hollywood aren’t raking in the dough despite popular opinion.
“This is for actors like myself who rely on side hustles in order to get by because we love to do the job that we love to do and we’re willing to make the sacrifice of life, to dedicate our lives to it,” he said.
“We’re just asking for a fair payday.”
