Being involved in high-profile productions doesn’t guarantee instant wealth, something that’s been repeatedly hammered home during the formative stages of the writers’ and actors’ strike, with the case of Molly Nussbaum standing out as a startling example.
As noted during her interview with The Wrap, the WGA member has worked on some major shows in a variety of capacities including the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Daredevil: Born Again, Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy, and Peacock’s One of Us Is Lying, as well as critical darlings The Affair and The Americans, only to reveal she’d ended up driving for Lyft in order to make ends meet.
“The money that you make on a job has to now last you six, 10, 12, 14 months – and when you don’t have residuals coming to help you get through that… I mean, I was an executive producer in April on a hit show for a streaming platform, and I was driving for Lyft in December. That doesn’t make any sense. It’s not good. I believe that what we’re asking for is fair. We want our fair share in the wealth that we create for these billion dollar companies. I care a lot about residuals and making sure that streaming residuals reflect the wealth we are generating.”
Streaming has always been at the center of the storm, and stories like this only serve to shine a light on the discrepancies. You can work for the richest outfits in the industry on hotly-hyped episodic originals, and at the end of the day you still won’t even have enough to put food on the table without supplementary income.