Kirk Acevedo says Hollywood’s middle class has been squeezed out, and he says the pressure has become personal. Appearing on the March 23 episode of Ryan M. Perez’s podcast An Actor Despairs, Acevedo said he has gone from steady work to facing the need to sell his house.
“So, I went from working non-stop, to now I got to sell my house. I got to sell my house, and everyone’s going through this,” Acevedo said.
His case is simple and blunt. In 2021, Acevedo said he was up for several TV roles and kept coming in second. “2021 comes, and I’m up for some TV shows; it just goes one way, this way, and that would have saved me. That would’ve saved me. That doesn’t work, and I keep coming in second place, and the reality is second place, you’re the first one to lose,” he said. He added that the market now puts working actors in direct competition with marquee names. “In TV now, all the movie stars — since there’s no more films, not the way it used to be — they’re all in TV. Every Oscar winner is doing some eight- to 10- to 13-episode show multiple times,” he said.
Acevedo said that makes the math unforgiving. “I’m competing with Oscar winners. It’s like, ‘OK, should we pay Kirk his quote, or this guy that was nominated for an Oscar seven, eight, 10 years ago?’ See the problem?” he said. He also walked through the earnings on which many actors depend. “Let’s say you do 10 guest spots,” he said. Ten guest spots would total $100,000, he said, but after a 20% agent and manager cut, $80,000 would remain. After taxes, that would drop to $45,000. If rent were $3,000 a month, that would amount to $36,000 a year.
The squeeze Acevedo describes comes as fewer overall roles become more competitive, with actors across film and television chasing the same jobs. He has appeared in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., DC’s Arrow, and the films Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Insidious: The Last Key, but he said even established credits do not insulate performers from the shift. He said someone could survive on 10 episodes if they were just starting out, but for many working actors, the path he described now runs straight into a wall.