‘Insecure’ star exposes truth behind Hollywood glamour: $86 from his residual checks

Now we turn to the historic joint strike in Hollywood. One month on strike for SAG-AFTRA, the actors union, and more than 100 days for the Writers Guild. As of this weekend, the Writers Guild Association has told their members that they are evaluating an offer to resume talks with the studios after a discussion on Friday. However, the actors, they have had no contact from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers or AMPTP about restarting their negotiations. The two parties remain far apart on issues like pay raises, residual payment, restructuring, healthcare contributions, and artificial intelligence. According to the chief negotiator for the SAG-AFTRA union, actors made a median salary of $46,960 in 2021. That is, that's just shocking. A reminder to folks, the AMPTP represents NBCUniversal, the parent company of NBC News. Actor Kendrick Sampson joins me to discuss it all right now. You may know him from movies like, Something from Tiffany's, and shows like Insecure, and of course, his social justice activism. It's good to see you, my friend. Thank you for being here. I want to start with- I'm honored to be here. I appreciate you. I want to start with something you posted, and I was- I believe it. And I think this really illustrates why actors are striking and the financial toll of what is going on right now, what going on strike means. You wrote that 50, this is your check, and you wrote that 50? I mean, it is just insane. What is going on here? $86 from all your checks? What is going on here? Let me tell you something. And it wasn't just insecure. It's actually more stressful than that. Like, that median income of $46,000 is not the majority of the membership of SAG. Like, about 90% of SAG is always unemployed. Like, unemployed, 90% before the strike. And most people can't make $24,000. I think there's a video out that outlines how you have to- you could be on three hit shows. You could do a guest star role, a big guest star role on three different shows, and the threshold to make health care is $24,000. You don't make $24,000 as a guest star on even adding up those three shows. The residual checks were from multiple shows. I've been on How to Get Away with Murder, Vampire, That Freedom is Here. I can name all of these that were hit shows that should be. They're still on streaming platforms. They're still making money for these streaming platforms. And our residual checks, when I tell you I was looking forward to them checks because I needed to pay these bills. And to count, it's degrading to sit there and count through zero and try to add up how much it's going to be, $0.00. I've had a lot of checks for $0.00. Kendrick, this is crazy. So I guess, what do you want people to know? Because there is no- what do you want people out there to know? Because there are folks that say, okay, I hear you, but when y'all were getting paid, you made a lot of money. What do you really want people to take away from the fact that you all are literally foregoing your livelihood to take a stand? Well, I mean, there's a lot of things happening with this. We're not the only ones going on strike. What I want people to know is this is a labor movement, right? People don't understand that the creatives, that the writers, that the crew, and folks that participate in Hollywood, it's not just some dream that they have painted for everybody that, oh, overnight success, you're rich as an actor. Most of these people on carpets don't own the clothes that they are wearing. They are not making a lot of money. They probably pulled up in a Honda Civic and are like trying to look like they got a lot of money so that people want to be them or whatever it is. It's a facade. That's what Hollywood is. And there are AI problems. We're the first frontier for AI, right? Actually requiring people to transfer or give over their data, their biometric data, whatever it is, so that they can create programs that replace the job, replace the human. They don't see these jobs as connected to human. They don't see these paychecks as connected to human. And fast food workers walking out, LA City workers walked out last week. UPS came really close to a historic strike. They came close, but they getting that 170K now. So find you a UPS worker. I mean, we could do this all day. I guess I just really want people to know that you have always used your platform to raise your voice on everything from social justice issues to campaigns. And now this, and reminding folks that this is a labor movement, is critical. So I just, I really appreciate your time today. Thank you. Absolutely, thank you. Always good to talk to you.