Johnson, who is worth an estimated AU$1.2 billion (NZ$1.3 billion), made a huge private donation to the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, which will go towards providing financial relief to the union’s 160,000 members as they continue to strike, reports Variety.
Chatting to the publisher, the SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s president Courtney B. Vance and executive director Cyd Wilson revealed that they received the Jumanji star’s donation after they sent a letter to 2,700 of the union’s highest-earning members, asking for donations.
“It’s the largest single donation that we’ve ever received from one individual at one time. And what is amazing is that that one cheque is going to help thousands of actors keep food on their table, and keep their kids safe, and keep their cars running. And it’s not lost on me that he’s very humble about this, but it is a way to get us started,” Wilson shared.
Vance dubbed the sizeable amount as “historical” – and, while the exact sum hasn’t been revealed, Variety reports that it is a “seven-figure” number.
The Rock’s generous donation comes as various high-profile actors have spilled the beans on the industry, particularly around receiving tiny residual cheques for their roles in extremely successful TV shows.
Striking writers and actors take part in a rally outside Paramount studios in Los Angeles on July 14. This marks the first day actors formally joined the picket lines, more than two months after screenwriters began striking in their bid to get better pay and working conditions. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Veteran actor and Abbot Elementary alum William Stanford Davis revealed one of his latest residual cheques on social media, which amounted to only three cents.
“I showed this to my brother and he fell over laughing … it ain’t f***ing funny,” he added.
These kinds of small payments are not an anomaly, which Davis proved by sharing another residual cheque in a video posted to Instagram.
While the figure was slightly higher, it was still only five cents.
“You see that? Can you believe that? That’s [five] cents,” he said. “The postage, the paper, everything costs more than that. That’s what they think of us as actors. This is why we’re on strike for better wages, for better residuals [and] for a piece of the subscription and to not give in to AI.”
While This Is Us actress Mandy Moore was on the picket lines last week, she told The Hollywood Reporter that residual payments were a “huge issue” in the industry.
“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,” she said.
Moore claims that she had received “very tiny, like 81-cent cheques” from the series’ streaming residuals, which saw the actress appear in 106 episodes that were watched by millions of people in the US and around the globe.
Multiple cast members of the hit Netflix series Orange Is The New Black have opened up about their low pay. While the show was one of the biggest to hit the screen during the streaming era, many of the actors had to work day jobs in order to stay afloat and, at present, receive no ongoing payments for the series.
“My t*ts live on in perpetuity”: A star of one of Netflix’s biggest shows says she should be paid more for filming such revealing scenes. Photos / Instagram
Fran Drescher, former The Nanny star and now SAG-AFTRA president, dubbed Iger’s comments as “repugnant.”
“I found [his comments] terribly repugnant and out of touch. Positively tone deaf,” she said.
“If I were that company, I would lock him behind doors and never let him talk to anybody about this, because it’s so obvious that he has no clue as to what is really happening on the ground with hardworking people who don’t make anywhere near the salary that he’s making.”
160,000 film and television actors have joined members of the Writers Guild of America on the picket lines in the first joint strike between the two unions since 1960.
Their demands include increases in pay, residuals to reflect the streaming TV landscape and guarantees that artificial intelligence (AI) won’t take their jobs.
