Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | September 23, 2026
You might recognize Jack Haven from TV shows like Atypical or films like I Saw the TV Glow and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. They're a young and acclaimed performer who has been acting since childhood and is now something of an indie darling. They're also one of the more prominent trans actors in the business right now. So, when Haven took to social media to ask for more work so that they could keep their SAG insurance, some were surprised. Were things that bad? The vitriol from other corners, while unsurprising, was also vicious. How dare Haven beg so flagrantly for a job, right? Surely they had so much money in their account thanks to movies like Castration Movie Anthology ii. The Best of Both Worlds? They're an actor so clearly they are both loaded and intensely privileged. Ha.
You may not have noticed right now, but the entertainment industry is a veritable sh*tshow run by crooked oligarchs who are turning it into an almighty monopoly that kneels before the President's diseased whims. The Warner Bros/.Paramount merger is moving forward despite the protests of almost the entire business. Fewer productions are being greenlit, both in film and TV. The threat of AI taking over jobs on and off the screen has never been more tangible. A few films making $1 billion does not balance out the reality for the vast majority of people in this industry, including a hell of a lot of household names: they are struggling to make a living and it's only getting worse.
The SAG-AFTRA strikes brought to the forefront the issue of residuals, which have been slashed to ribbons by streaming services. Hundreds of millions of people could watch your show on Netflix and you could still only make a few dollars in royalties from it. Jobbing actors used to survive off those residuals, tiding them over between dry spells. You could do some indie films, have a few guests spots on network TV, then have a supporting role in a tentpole flick, and that was enough to make an honest living. Now, that's a pipedream. Many network shows cut supporting parts down to guest roles to expand profits, leaving the performers to tighten their belts even further.
Cheyenne Jackson, who you probably know from Broadway and several Ryan Murphy shows, noted on Instagram that the hierarchy has changed drastically. Everyone has to audition now, and for increasingly smaller pieces of the pie. And it doesn't matter how famous or acclaimed you are. Jeff Hiller won an Emmy last year and is on one of 2026's most celebrated new shows, but he also admitted that he hasn't worked at all in months and it's left him feeling pretty scared. Martha Plimpton, a beloved star from an acting family who has been on-screen since childhood, confessed in 2021 that for a while she was so broke that she "was asking for babysitting jobs," even as she earned her third consecutive Tony nomination. It took getting the job on Raising Hope, a network sitcom that ran for four seasons, to get her out of that hole. And these are the actors you know. Imagine what it's like for those who aren't familiar faces.
To qualify for SAG health insurance, you need to earn $28,090 in covered sessional earnings. That's up from five years ago, when it was a little over $25,000. Next year, it'll go up to $28,933. That's below the average annual wage in America, and, in 2023, only 14% of members met that threshold. Having your healthcare tied to your job is a crooked system as it is, but with actors, it's an especially insidious business. You can go without work for months and that's without extenuating circumstances like strikes, buyouts, or whatever David Ellison is up to. Actors are freelancers in a dying market. As a freelance writer myself, I can relate, but at least I have the NHS.
When I started writing professionally over nine years ago, I got my start at a content mill that paid next to nothing, but whenever I told someone I was a writer, they'd respond with some variation of, "Wow, I bet you're rich." The assumption about any job in a creative field is that it pays millions of dollars. You do one movie so you must be loaded. I saw you on stage once, I bet you've got Tom Cruise money. Fame gives the illusion of security. It's a sturdy lie that's retained its power even as our notions of celebrity change. You went viral once, so surely TikTok just wrote you a blank cheque? I know who you are, therefore you can never ask for help from us lowly plebs.
The smarmy responses to Haven's plea, those insisting that he must either be lying or is somehow stealing money from more deserving starving artists, reminded me a lot of the ways that people slammed Jools Lebron (I wrote about it here.) When the influencer behind the "very demure, very mindful" viral moment asked for donations to help pay for much-needed dental work, she was called an entitled scammer who needed to go back to the "real world." Both are trans people, which explains some of the vitriol, but it's also the strange conservatism of these responses from ostensibly leftist and queer people that baffled me. Get a real job, if we have to scrape by in a cruel world where we're underpaid and overworked then so should you. There seemed to be little awareness of the fact that nobody should have to be in that situation. Your healthcare being dependent your online popularity is the stuff of dystopia, and yet it is the status quo for Americans. GoFundMe is now technically a major funder of medical care.
Acting and the arts are for everyone. When we harangue Jack Haven and their contemporaries for admitting their struggles, we're only reinforcing the idea that such fields are solely for those with the right money and connections. Do you want every movie to be dominated by bland nepo babies? Because that's what we'll get if we dismiss working-class performers as "arrogant" for their professional candour. We're all struggling right now, but class solidarity matters, and yes, it applies to your favourite actors.
