Seann William Scott was paid just $8,000 for his role in ‘American Pie’.
The 46-year-old actor’s role as Steve Stifler in the 1999 movie was his first feature-length film but despite the global success of the film, he had to get a job as a “churro guy” at a local zoo to make ends meet after splurging most of his pay cheque on a second-hand car.
Appearing on ‘The Rick Eisen Show’, Seann was asked if it was true he was only paid the four-figure sum for his movie debut and he said: “I think so, yeah, because I remember afterwards I bought a used Thunderbird for like $5,000 or maybe $6,000, I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, baby’.
“I don’t know what happened to the other $2,000 because I ended up having to work at the LA Zoo as a churro guy, so maybe it was even less than $8,000.”
The ‘Dude Where’s My Car’ actor explained he had one other job “while waiting for the movie to come out” before spending “two days” working at the zoo.
His comments come after Tommy Dorfman recently revealed she earned less than $30,000 for the first season of ’13 Reasons Why’, on which she played Ryan Shaver.
The 31-year-old star – who had a starring role in the first two seasons before being shifted to a guest in seasons three and four – broke down her pay details to highlight one of the reasons why she is striking as a member of acting union SAG-AFTRA.
She wrote on Threads: “my earnings for the entire first season of 13 reasons why were $29,953.24 prior to agency and manager fees (20%) and taxes. 8 episodes over six months.
“i did all of the promo and had KEY ART for this show, flew round trip from NYC to SF to shoot for every episode, was kept for days without pay/working. i barely qualified for insurance. within the first 28 days of release, the show’s season 1 garnered a total of 476 million view hours. this is why we strike. @sagaftra (sic)”
And Mandy Moore revealed she had earned “around 81 cents” from streaming residuals since Hulu bought the rights to ‘This Is Us’ from NBC in 2017.
She told The Hollywood Reporter: “The residual issue is a huge issue.
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.
“I was talking with my business manager who said he’s received a residual for a penny and two pennies.”
The Screen Actors Guild union ordered a strike across TV, theatrical, and streaming productions earlier this month amid concerns over wages for actors and creators in the industry, AI technology, and how the profits of digital streaming on services such as Netflix and Disney+ can be divided.
