August 29, 2024 • 19 mins
How do you pursue a career in an industry where even your "advocates" are keeping you down?
That's the story of this week's confessor, a voiceover actor who successfully navigates many typical obstacles to a creative career, only to discover their agent is stealing from them.
As they try to figure out what to do about it, our confessor learns how to be their own best advocate and learns some fantastic tips for up-and-comers in all arenas. Join us for a discussion of what it's really like to work behind the mic, and how to speak out for yourself no matter what challenges the industry throws your way.
Connect with us:
Check out some of our favorite shows:
- Screenwriters' Rant Room
- Screaming into the Hollywood Abyss
- It Happened in Hollywood
- The Secret History of Hollywood
Hollywood Confessional is a Ninth Way Media production, produced by Meagan Daine and J.R. Zamora-Thal.
Sound Effects and Music provided by Zapsplat and Pixabay.
Keywords: filmmaking podcast, film podcast, screenwriting podcast, entertainment podcast, Hollywood, filmmaking, writerslife, actorslife, setlife
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
In nomine Cinema e TV , Espiritu Streaming Amen.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hello, hello Hollywood, faithful Welcome back
.
I am Megan Dane, your favoritepodcast priest or second
favorite, depending on how yougo and it's a very important
distinction.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I am JR Zamorathal, the other podcast priest, and
today we've got a really coolstory.
We're reaching into the vaulthere a little bit for a story
about voice actors and voiceactor agents.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, it's an interesting one for me right now
, actually, because I have alittle bit of a confession to
make my own.
I guess I've been thinkingabout looking for an agent.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Please step into the confessional and burden yourself
.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Why, thank you.
Um, maybe you're my favoritepodcast.
Um, yeah, it's, it's weird.
It's like I had a wonderfulexperience working on Cross and
I'm kind of at a stage.
You know you hit stages right.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
In your career, it's like yeah, I remember talking
about this with Sam and Jim onthe writer's room, with Sam and
Jim how they were telling us howyou get over one wall and then
you don't realize that Hollywoodis just a series of walls that
you get over.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, yeah.
Or as another friend of minealways puts it, there's always
another velvet rope.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Like you get past the first velvet rope and you're
like, yeah, I'm in.
And then you're like, oh shit,there's another and then.
And then you start thinkinglike who's going to help me get
over this wall, right, or can Iget over this wall by myself, or
do I need help?
And I'm in that phase right nowof like, oh, there's another
wall, now what do I do?
Speaker 1 (01:56):
And so I'm thinking maybe agent, but also maybe not.
You know, so many peopleprobably that listen to this
podcast really wantrepresentation.
It's not so much a question ofagent or not, it's when can I
get an agent?
Why do you have questions aboutwhether or not you want an
agent?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Well, I think the confession coming up is going to
answer that to some degree.
But the thing is that it's just, it's very often not what you
hope it's going to be.
In some ways it is.
I have been very, veryfortunate to be with the same
manager for about seven yearsnow.
(02:34):
He's a wonderful guy, greatpartner.
But then you know, there'salways like people that could be
out there hustling in differentways to get you more work, but
also they could not be hustlingand they could be hustling you.
And that happens so often.
And I think I may be wrongabout this, but my impression is
(02:56):
that for people at my level, um, or at our level, that it
happens to us more often thannot because we're kind of, you
know, small fish and like theydon't have to do anything for us
because we're so hungry, welike, desperately, want them on
our side and all they have to dois say yes and all of a sudden
(03:19):
we're so grateful to them andthen you know you end up in a
relationship where basicallythey're not doing anything for
you and then you start makingmoney and they just take their
cut you know.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
So even if they don't get you the job, they still
take their cut if they'rerepresenting you.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Oh, that's tough.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, yeah, and I mean a lot of people will say
that for your first couple ofyears you get most of your own
jobs, and I don't know howcommonly that is the case, but
I've sure heard it a lot, and soyou know, I guess I feel like
I've been in an abusiverelationship or something, and
I'm like I just don't want toget hurt again, but you know
(04:02):
it's stories like the one we'reabout to hear that give me pause
.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Why don't we give our listeners a little context and
hop into the confessional booth?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Let's do it.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
In the beginning I was young and foolish.
I was an on-camera actor inHollywood and I wanted to try
voiceover work.
Everybody said it was difficultto get into.
They told me the people who doit for money have been there for
years and it's not going tochange.
But as I got started I saw myvoiceover career making more
(04:47):
money than my on-camera careerand I was happy because I was
being creative.
The actors on camera are prettymuch the bottom of the totem
pole so they don't get treatedvery well.
Unless you're a director orwriter or celebrity.
The actors are pretty muchoverpaid extras.
In the voiceover world you havea skill that's valued and they
(05:09):
can't do the job without you.
So the actors are valued alittle bit more and if you can
hone your skills so that you'reable to compete, it can be a
really great career.
Pretty soon I saw an opportunityto grow in voiceover I met my
agent Was a charmer, that's allI can say.
(05:36):
He was the type of person whoalways picked up the phone.
He seemed really nice.
We got along so we startedworking together.
I did a lot of jobs for him,but the last year of my working
with him my money went down alot.
So I started looking at itgoing down a lot.
(05:59):
So I started looking at itgoing.
What's going on In voiceover?
The agent gets an audition fora client and sends it out to the
actors 10 or 20 or so,depending on how many they have
on the roster.
Hopefully somebody books it.
There is always supposed to bea contract when you work with a
legitimate agent.
You get a contract, you sign it, you send it back so you know
(06:20):
how much you are getting paidfor what you're doing.
I started realizing that thisit was like.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Oh, there were no contracts on that.
No, no, we didn't get acontract on that.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
So basically, the check would come from his
company, but he would never sendthe pay stub with it or how
much money he got.
So was this happening with theother actors as well?
Pretty much, and the way I knowthat is that came to LA and
threw parties with all hisclients, so eventually a bunch
(06:55):
of the people started to gettogether to compare notes.
This is what we think happened.
He was writing his name so hecould get paid, and he wouldn't
tell the actor how much he wasgetting.
Basically, he was getting paidas an agent or a manager, on top
of putting his name down aseither a producer or maybe even
(07:18):
the talent, and then he wouldpay the talent out of his
company, obviously for a lotless.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Holy shit, that's fully criminal.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
And it's even worse than it sounds.
Imagine you sign a contract fora year.
The next year, when they callto renegotiate, how does the
actor know that the client isusing their voice again when the
actor's name is nowhere to befound in any contract?
Another actor told me that shehad done a big campaign and
realized it was up forrenegotiation.
(07:50):
She had to call and say hey,this campaign is up for
renegotiation and said oh oops.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
I forgot, oh man, yeah, I'll send you the check.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
So basically he forgets to pay.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
My experience was that he booked me for a demo
session.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
He said it's only a demo.
There's no contract.
Go and do it and if they pickit up I'll get a contract, if it
goes on the air.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
And the demo session is usually not full out, you say
, ok, let's try this, let's trythat.
Then I get there and I'm likethis is not a demo, this is a
session, and when you do a fullsession it's the final product.
So at the session I asked for acontract repeatedly.
They sent it and I figured outthe was making 80% of my money.
(08:42):
What he said the session was250 and that was it.
The actual contract said thesession was 750 plus the usage,
it was like 5,000.
And his words to me were oh, Inegotiated a little higher.
That's not negotiating a littlehigher From 250 to 5,000, that
(09:05):
was completely blatant theft.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Okay, okay.
Don't they need the actor'ssignature to have a legal right
to your voice?
Is he signing your name on thecontract?
Speaker 3 (09:15):
That's what I'm thinking.
No-transcript.
Other actors have proof.
We figured out that he wasdoing this to at least half his
roster.
Oh my.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
God, okay, so you said there was this year when
you noticed that your moneydropped.
Why do you think he all of asudden started stealing from you
?
Speaker 3 (09:34):
He was stealing from other people before he started
stealing from me.
I didn't notice it at firstbecause he was so charming.
It was very hurtful that he didthat.
It was such a stab in the back.
I heard from some Latino actorsthat he had been doing this for
years.
I think he targeted Latinoactors because they are a little
(09:55):
more scared to lose the work.
They're not as established asAmerican actors.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
All right, this one hits close to home.
I'm also Latino and what he'sdoing is doubly nefarious.
He's taking advantage of ourpeople because he can, because
we have fears that, quitefrankly, white people don't have
.
He's tapping into that to takeadvantage of us.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
As Latinos, you have to be three times better to be
considered an equal.
Actors are pretty much thebottom of the barrel.
They feel like they have nopower and I think that they fear
they're not going to getanother job with him or they're
going to get blacklisted.
Did you try reaching out to theunion about this?
Yeah, only 3% of actors in theunion actually make a living off
(10:36):
acting.
The union has dropped the balla lot.
I don't think they understandwhat voice actors do.
If you look at the history, theunion is pretty much geared
towards celebrities.
Voice actors are not themajority of the money coming in.
It's the celebrity money that'sthe majority.
So they were not crazy aboutthe merger with SAG-AFTRA.
(10:58):
It's a big union now, butthey're not interested in extras
, voiceovers, and they'recertainly not interested in
other markets that are lowerthan that.
They keep dropping the ballbecause they don't realize they
have to move with the times.
Now everything is beingtranslated and people are
getting paid peanuts.
Translating falls under voiceacting work.
(11:19):
You, you're translating aNetflix TV show or movie and I
think it's $30 an hour, whereascommercials it's $500 a week and
you get residuals.
When you dub a TV show, you putthe words into a different
language from the TV show or fora movie.
You get $30 an hour.
So if you're a dubbing actorand that's all you do, it's good
(11:41):
money.
But you don't work every dayfor $30 an hour, eight hours a
day.
You have to audition, you haveto book it and with AI coming in
, they can have a voice thatsounds like a human.
So why is a company going topay thousands of dollars to get
a voice actor with all thenuance if they can get AI actor
(12:05):
with all the nuance, if they canget AI?
What's happening right now iscompanies are paying actors to
use their voice to teach AI andto grab pieces from their voices
to create a human soundingvoiceover and get the actors out
of a job.
These actors are going in for$1,500 a session and they're
never going to get work afterthat.
There's a company in Canadathat works on a pay-to-play
(12:27):
system.
They have a contract that saysthey own your voice and nobody
knows about it because actorsdon't read their contracts.
They own the voices.
So if you ever work for acompany like that, they can turn
around and sell your voice toAI and you don't get a penny.
All creators, illustrators,photographers they're all going
(12:52):
to be out of a job unless theycan find a way out.
In 30 years, the entertainmentindustry is going to look
completely different.
I don't think we're going tohave a job in 30 years.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Especially not with people like your agent out there
.
Toxic people lead to a toxicindustry.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Exactly, and there are loopholes everywhere for
these people to keep gettingaway with it.
Agents are only supposed totake 10% of what they get you.
My agent had the agency for 10%and then he had the management
company.
He would put his name on thenon-union gigs and send you the
(13:31):
check from the managementcompany and I never saw a pay
stub or the contract.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
I know an actor who caught him saying oh, that
thousand dollars that was takenout of your check.
That was for taxes.
Who caught him saying oh?
Speaker 3 (13:43):
that $1,000 that was taken out of your check.
That was for taxes.
It wasn't for taxes.
Taxes were already taken out.
That actor told me they calledthe union and the union said if
he pays you the $1,000 back, wecan't do anything.
Paid the $1,000 back because hegot caught.
What about the times he didn'tget caught?
I tried to do more.
(14:04):
I talked to a lawyer.
The only thing I can do is takehim to court, go out there, get
a forensic accountant to lookback through all these years and
at the end of it all it's goingto cost me more money than to
just stop working with him.
So I stopped working with him.
I sent him an email asking forthe contracts and all he sent me
(14:25):
was his contracts with me.
There were zero contracts foranyone else.
I called him repeatedly and henever picked up.
He still works with a ton ofpeople.
A lot of them are big timevoiceover actors.
They're still working with thisperson, knowing he steals,
which is mind boggling.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Why do you think they're still working with him?
Speaker 3 (14:49):
He's banking on the work of the actors who are
afraid to call him out becausethey're not going to get the
next audition, but he's cheatingthem out of their work.
The minute I stopped workingwith him, my money doubled
because I found another agent towork with who was legit.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
This is reminding me of another confession we had
recently called Class Con, wherethe answer to these problems a
lot of times is not to getinvolved in the first place,
because if you've gotten screwed, there's kind of not much you
can do about it.
There's kind of not much youcan do about it, but if you have
advice for somebody who'scoming up about how you can
(15:26):
avoid getting screwed in thefirst place, what?
Speaker 3 (15:28):
would your advice be Read your contract.
There is always a contract.
Ask for the contract and readevery single word.
Make sure you are getting paidfor what you're doing and not
getting screwed.
Are getting paid for whatyou're doing and not getting
screwed.
You have to make your own way.
Don't let them deny your talent.
(15:50):
Be the best at what you do.
Thanks to all the people whotold me.
No, I am who I am today.
It's difficult at any point,but that's why you have to be
the best, so they consider youan equal.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
That's so true.
You have to carve your path inthis industry and you have to
know your value and, like wetalked about with ClassCon, if
somebody who's trying to scamyou is giving you an opportunity
, it's not actually anopportunity in the first place.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Thanks for fighting the good fight and for sharing
your story with us.
Go create in peace.
Wow, I really, when we firststarted to hear this story, um,
(16:34):
I really thought that it wasjust going to be a story about a
dirty agent.
And then it was so interestingbecause it turns into this sort
of journey through, likevoiceover as a field and kind of
the state of that particularpart of the industry.
And this is, by the way, it wasgosh almost two years ago or
something when we recorded thisepisode, maybe a year and a half
(16:56):
.
It was quite some time ago.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
It was before the writer's strike and before the
SAG strike.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
It was well before the strikes and we had planned
to air it but then didn'tbecause we were, you know,
standing in solidarity withSAG-AFTRA and not working with
actors during the strikes andyou know.
So scheduling things andwhatnot, and ended up landing
here.
But it's so interesting howmany of the things that the
confessor was concerned abouthave kind of come to pass.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Yeah, and now with the recent video game voice
actor performer strike, I thinkwe're seeing a lot of these
problems coming to the frontlines and I think that you know
it might seem dark now, but wesaw what solidarity could do
when the writers and actors wenton strike last year and I think
solidarity is really the wayforward.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
This is our industry and not only do we have to work
in it, we have to protect it,and this is what we do to
protect it our industry and Ithink that's really important
for us and our listeners to allkind of remember together that
we create the world that we aregoing to be living in.
We create this.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
That's so empowering God.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
So we're going to leave it on a high note.
Listeners, that's going to beall we've got for you this week.
Thank you so much for joiningus and please come back in two
weeks.
We've got a crazy story aboutsomeone who was trying to get a
person fired and For cause.
Yeah, serious cause and raninto all kinds of obstacles
(18:31):
along the way.
It is insane what goes onbehind closed doors in HR, so
please join us for that.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Please remember to follow us on social media.
At FessUpHollywood, on X andInstagram, we are very active.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I'd like to say why, thank you, we try.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
And by we I mean Megan James.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
And hit us up, subscribe.
Let us know if you have somestories to share or, by the way,
some shout-outs for people whoyou want on the Happy Hollywood
list.
We would love to hear about it.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
And until then, go create in peace.
The Hollywood Confessional isproduced by Megan Dane and Jair
Zamora-Thal.
Joelle Garfinkel is ourco-producer and AJ Thal is our
post-production coordinator andeditor.
Our cast today Vicki George,timothy Wardell.
(19:28):
Special effects provided byZapSplat and Pixabay.
Hollywood Confessional is aNinth Way Media production.
Follow us on socials atFessUpHollywood.
In nomine Cinema e TV , Espiritu Streaming Amen.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hello, hello Hollywood, faithful Welcome back
.
I am Megan Dane, your favoritepodcast priest or second
favorite, depending on how yougo and it's a very important
distinction.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I am JR Zamorathal, the other podcast priest, and
today we've got a really coolstory.
We're reaching into the vaulthere a little bit for a story
about voice actors and voiceactor agents.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, it's an interesting one for me right now
, actually, because I have alittle bit of a confession to
make my own.
I guess I've been thinkingabout looking for an agent.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Please step into the confessional and burden yourself
.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Why, thank you.
Um, maybe you're my favoritepodcast.
Um, yeah, it's, it's weird.
It's like I had a wonderfulexperience working on Cross and
I'm kind of at a stage.
You know you hit stages right.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
In your career, it's like yeah, I remember talking
about this with Sam and Jim onthe writer's room, with Sam and
Jim how they were telling us howyou get over one wall and then
you don't realize that Hollywoodis just a series of walls that
you get over.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, yeah.
Or as another friend of minealways puts it, there's always
another velvet rope.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Like you get past the first velvet rope and you're
like, yeah, I'm in.
And then you're like, oh shit,there's another and then.
And then you start thinkinglike who's going to help me get
over this wall, right, or can Iget over this wall by myself, or
do I need help?
And I'm in that phase right nowof like, oh, there's another
wall, now what do I do?
Speaker 1 (01:56):
And so I'm thinking maybe agent, but also maybe not.
You know, so many peopleprobably that listen to this
podcast really wantrepresentation.
It's not so much a question ofagent or not, it's when can I
get an agent?
Why do you have questions aboutwhether or not you want an
agent?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Well, I think the confession coming up is going to
answer that to some degree.
But the thing is that it's just, it's very often not what you
hope it's going to be.
In some ways it is.
I have been very, veryfortunate to be with the same
manager for about seven yearsnow.
(02:34):
He's a wonderful guy, greatpartner.
But then you know, there'salways like people that could be
out there hustling in differentways to get you more work, but
also they could not be hustlingand they could be hustling you.
And that happens so often.
And I think I may be wrongabout this, but my impression is
(02:56):
that for people at my level, um, or at our level, that it
happens to us more often thannot because we're kind of, you
know, small fish and like theydon't have to do anything for us
because we're so hungry, welike, desperately, want them on
our side and all they have to dois say yes and all of a sudden
(03:19):
we're so grateful to them andthen you know you end up in a
relationship where basicallythey're not doing anything for
you and then you start makingmoney and they just take their
cut you know.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
So even if they don't get you the job, they still
take their cut if they'rerepresenting you.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Oh, that's tough.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, yeah, and I mean a lot of people will say
that for your first couple ofyears you get most of your own
jobs, and I don't know howcommonly that is the case, but
I've sure heard it a lot, and soyou know, I guess I feel like
I've been in an abusiverelationship or something, and
I'm like I just don't want toget hurt again, but you know
(04:02):
it's stories like the one we'reabout to hear that give me pause
.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Why don't we give our listeners a little context and
hop into the confessional booth?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Let's do it.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
In the beginning I was young and foolish.
I was an on-camera actor inHollywood and I wanted to try
voiceover work.
Everybody said it was difficultto get into.
They told me the people who doit for money have been there for
years and it's not going tochange.
But as I got started I saw myvoiceover career making more
(04:47):
money than my on-camera careerand I was happy because I was
being creative.
The actors on camera are prettymuch the bottom of the totem
pole so they don't get treatedvery well.
Unless you're a director orwriter or celebrity.
The actors are pretty muchoverpaid extras.
In the voiceover world you havea skill that's valued and they
(05:09):
can't do the job without you.
So the actors are valued alittle bit more and if you can
hone your skills so that you'reable to compete, it can be a
really great career.
Pretty soon I saw an opportunityto grow in voiceover I met my
agent Was a charmer, that's allI can say.
(05:36):
He was the type of person whoalways picked up the phone.
He seemed really nice.
We got along so we startedworking together.
I did a lot of jobs for him,but the last year of my working
with him my money went down alot.
So I started looking at itgoing down a lot.
(05:59):
So I started looking at itgoing.
What's going on In voiceover?
The agent gets an audition fora client and sends it out to the
actors 10 or 20 or so,depending on how many they have
on the roster.
Hopefully somebody books it.
There is always supposed to bea contract when you work with a
legitimate agent.
You get a contract, you sign it, you send it back so you know
(06:20):
how much you are getting paidfor what you're doing.
I started realizing that thisit was like.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Oh, there were no contracts on that.
No, no, we didn't get acontract on that.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
So basically, the check would come from his
company, but he would never sendthe pay stub with it or how
much money he got.
So was this happening with theother actors as well?
Pretty much, and the way I knowthat is that came to LA and
threw parties with all hisclients, so eventually a bunch
(06:55):
of the people started to gettogether to compare notes.
This is what we think happened.
He was writing his name so hecould get paid, and he wouldn't
tell the actor how much he wasgetting.
Basically, he was getting paidas an agent or a manager, on top
of putting his name down aseither a producer or maybe even
(07:18):
the talent, and then he wouldpay the talent out of his
company, obviously for a lotless.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Holy shit, that's fully criminal.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
And it's even worse than it sounds.
Imagine you sign a contract fora year.
The next year, when they callto renegotiate, how does the
actor know that the client isusing their voice again when the
actor's name is nowhere to befound in any contract?
Another actor told me that shehad done a big campaign and
realized it was up forrenegotiation.
(07:50):
She had to call and say hey,this campaign is up for
renegotiation and said oh oops.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
I forgot, oh man, yeah, I'll send you the check.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
So basically he forgets to pay.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
My experience was that he booked me for a demo
session.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
He said it's only a demo.
There's no contract.
Go and do it and if they pickit up I'll get a contract, if it
goes on the air.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
And the demo session is usually not full out, you say
, ok, let's try this, let's trythat.
Then I get there and I'm likethis is not a demo, this is a
session, and when you do a fullsession it's the final product.
So at the session I asked for acontract repeatedly.
They sent it and I figured outthe was making 80% of my money.
(08:42):
What he said the session was250 and that was it.
The actual contract said thesession was 750 plus the usage,
it was like 5,000.
And his words to me were oh, Inegotiated a little higher.
That's not negotiating a littlehigher From 250 to 5,000, that
(09:05):
was completely blatant theft.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Okay, okay.
Don't they need the actor'ssignature to have a legal right
to your voice?
Is he signing your name on thecontract?
Speaker 3 (09:15):
That's what I'm thinking.
No-transcript.
Other actors have proof.
We figured out that he wasdoing this to at least half his
roster.
Oh my.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
God, okay, so you said there was this year when
you noticed that your moneydropped.
Why do you think he all of asudden started stealing from you
?
Speaker 3 (09:34):
He was stealing from other people before he started
stealing from me.
I didn't notice it at firstbecause he was so charming.
It was very hurtful that he didthat.
It was such a stab in the back.
I heard from some Latino actorsthat he had been doing this for
years.
I think he targeted Latinoactors because they are a little
(09:55):
more scared to lose the work.
They're not as established asAmerican actors.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
All right, this one hits close to home.
I'm also Latino and what he'sdoing is doubly nefarious.
He's taking advantage of ourpeople because he can, because
we have fears that, quitefrankly, white people don't have
.
He's tapping into that to takeadvantage of us.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
As Latinos, you have to be three times better to be
considered an equal.
Actors are pretty much thebottom of the barrel.
They feel like they have nopower and I think that they fear
they're not going to getanother job with him or they're
going to get blacklisted.
Did you try reaching out to theunion about this?
Yeah, only 3% of actors in theunion actually make a living off
(10:36):
acting.
The union has dropped the balla lot.
I don't think they understandwhat voice actors do.
If you look at the history, theunion is pretty much geared
towards celebrities.
Voice actors are not themajority of the money coming in.
It's the celebrity money that'sthe majority.
So they were not crazy aboutthe merger with SAG-AFTRA.
(10:58):
It's a big union now, butthey're not interested in extras
, voiceovers, and they'recertainly not interested in
other markets that are lowerthan that.
They keep dropping the ballbecause they don't realize they
have to move with the times.
Now everything is beingtranslated and people are
getting paid peanuts.
Translating falls under voiceacting work.
(11:19):
You, you're translating aNetflix TV show or movie and I
think it's $30 an hour, whereascommercials it's $500 a week and
you get residuals.
When you dub a TV show, you putthe words into a different
language from the TV show or fora movie.
You get $30 an hour.
So if you're a dubbing actorand that's all you do, it's good
(11:41):
money.
But you don't work every dayfor $30 an hour, eight hours a
day.
You have to audition, you haveto book it and with AI coming in
, they can have a voice thatsounds like a human.
So why is a company going topay thousands of dollars to get
a voice actor with all thenuance if they can get AI actor
(12:05):
with all the nuance, if they canget AI?
What's happening right now iscompanies are paying actors to
use their voice to teach AI andto grab pieces from their voices
to create a human soundingvoiceover and get the actors out
of a job.
These actors are going in for$1,500 a session and they're
never going to get work afterthat.
There's a company in Canadathat works on a pay-to-play
(12:27):
system.
They have a contract that saysthey own your voice and nobody
knows about it because actorsdon't read their contracts.
They own the voices.
So if you ever work for acompany like that, they can turn
around and sell your voice toAI and you don't get a penny.
All creators, illustrators,photographers they're all going
(12:52):
to be out of a job unless theycan find a way out.
In 30 years, the entertainmentindustry is going to look
completely different.
I don't think we're going tohave a job in 30 years.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Especially not with people like your agent out there
.
Toxic people lead to a toxicindustry.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Exactly, and there are loopholes everywhere for
these people to keep gettingaway with it.
Agents are only supposed totake 10% of what they get you.
My agent had the agency for 10%and then he had the management
company.
He would put his name on thenon-union gigs and send you the
(13:31):
check from the managementcompany and I never saw a pay
stub or the contract.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
I know an actor who caught him saying oh, that
thousand dollars that was takenout of your check.
That was for taxes.
Who caught him saying oh?
Speaker 3 (13:43):
that $1,000 that was taken out of your check.
That was for taxes.
It wasn't for taxes.
Taxes were already taken out.
That actor told me they calledthe union and the union said if
he pays you the $1,000 back, wecan't do anything.
Paid the $1,000 back because hegot caught.
What about the times he didn'tget caught?
I tried to do more.
(14:04):
I talked to a lawyer.
The only thing I can do is takehim to court, go out there, get
a forensic accountant to lookback through all these years and
at the end of it all it's goingto cost me more money than to
just stop working with him.
So I stopped working with him.
I sent him an email asking forthe contracts and all he sent me
(14:25):
was his contracts with me.
There were zero contracts foranyone else.
I called him repeatedly and henever picked up.
He still works with a ton ofpeople.
A lot of them are big timevoiceover actors.
They're still working with thisperson, knowing he steals,
which is mind boggling.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Why do you think they're still working with him?
Speaker 3 (14:49):
He's banking on the work of the actors who are
afraid to call him out becausethey're not going to get the
next audition, but he's cheatingthem out of their work.
The minute I stopped workingwith him, my money doubled
because I found another agent towork with who was legit.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
This is reminding me of another confession we had
recently called Class Con, wherethe answer to these problems a
lot of times is not to getinvolved in the first place,
because if you've gotten screwed, there's kind of not much you
can do about it.
There's kind of not much youcan do about it, but if you have
advice for somebody who'scoming up about how you can
(15:26):
avoid getting screwed in thefirst place, what?
Speaker 3 (15:28):
would your advice be Read your contract.
There is always a contract.
Ask for the contract and readevery single word.
Make sure you are getting paidfor what you're doing and not
getting screwed.
Are getting paid for whatyou're doing and not getting
screwed.
You have to make your own way.
Don't let them deny your talent.
(15:50):
Be the best at what you do.
Thanks to all the people whotold me.
No, I am who I am today.
It's difficult at any point,but that's why you have to be
the best, so they consider youan equal.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
That's so true.
You have to carve your path inthis industry and you have to
know your value and, like wetalked about with ClassCon, if
somebody who's trying to scamyou is giving you an opportunity
, it's not actually anopportunity in the first place.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Thanks for fighting the good fight and for sharing
your story with us.
Go create in peace.
Wow, I really, when we firststarted to hear this story, um,
(16:34):
I really thought that it wasjust going to be a story about a
dirty agent.
And then it was so interestingbecause it turns into this sort
of journey through, likevoiceover as a field and kind of
the state of that particularpart of the industry.
And this is, by the way, it wasgosh almost two years ago or
something when we recorded thisepisode, maybe a year and a half
(16:56):
.
It was quite some time ago.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
It was before the writer's strike and before the
SAG strike.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
It was well before the strikes and we had planned
to air it but then didn'tbecause we were, you know,
standing in solidarity withSAG-AFTRA and not working with
actors during the strikes andyou know.
So scheduling things andwhatnot, and ended up landing
here.
But it's so interesting howmany of the things that the
confessor was concerned abouthave kind of come to pass.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Yeah, and now with the recent video game voice
actor performer strike, I thinkwe're seeing a lot of these
problems coming to the frontlines and I think that you know
it might seem dark now, but wesaw what solidarity could do
when the writers and actors wenton strike last year and I think
solidarity is really the wayforward.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
This is our industry and not only do we have to work
in it, we have to protect it,and this is what we do to
protect it our industry and Ithink that's really important
for us and our listeners to allkind of remember together that
we create the world that we aregoing to be living in.
We create this.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
That's so empowering God.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
So we're going to leave it on a high note.
Listeners, that's going to beall we've got for you this week.
Thank you so much for joiningus and please come back in two
weeks.
We've got a crazy story aboutsomeone who was trying to get a
person fired and For cause.
Yeah, serious cause and raninto all kinds of obstacles
(18:31):
along the way.
It is insane what goes onbehind closed doors in HR, so
please join us for that.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Please remember to follow us on social media.
At FessUpHollywood, on X andInstagram, we are very active.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I'd like to say why, thank you, we try.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
And by we I mean Megan James.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
And hit us up, subscribe.
Let us know if you have somestories to share or, by the way,
some shout-outs for people whoyou want on the Happy Hollywood
list.
We would love to hear about it.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
And until then, go create in peace.
The Hollywood Confessional isproduced by Megan Dane and Jair
Zamora-Thal.
Joelle Garfinkel is ourco-producer and AJ Thal is our
post-production coordinator andeditor.
Our cast today Vicki George,timothy Wardell.
(19:28):
Special effects provided byZapSplat and Pixabay.
Hollywood Confessional is aNinth Way Media production.
Follow us on socials atFessUpHollywood.
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