Netflix was put on the map due to the help and success of hit series Orange Is The New Black. However, according to The Hollywood Reporter, much of the cast members who were on the supporting side note how they weren’t justly compensated on the revolutionary prison comedy drama as they recall the show’s rise to popularity and still continued success to this day.
The series created by Jenji Kohan (Weeds) celebrates its ten year anniversary from its premiere on July 11, 2013. This comes in the midst of the SAG-AFTRA announcement of the actors strike because the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers group of streamers and studios did not meet the requirements to make a deal with the union. Much of the issues the Orange Is The New Black supporting cast have are very similar to the AMPTP and SAG negotiations.
Ten reoccurring actors of Orange Is The New Black including Lea DeLaria (Edge of Seventeen), Diane Guerrero (Doom Patrol), Beth Dover (Outpost), Alysia Reiner (Egg), Emma Myles (Child of Grace), Kimiko Glenn (Kiff), and Taryn Manning (Karen) had talked with the shows writer Michael Schulman (Young New York) that they were being paid the “absolute bare minimum” SAG day rate which was under $1000 for each episode in the beginning of the series. Even though the show had huge success and won Emmys, giving rise to Netflix all over the world, many of the actors shared that they still had to stay at their day jobs while the show was running.
Kimiko Glenn shared on her TikTok that she has only garnered $27.30 in overseas royalties from the show. The actress shared this jarring information during the writers strike, to which both her costars Beth Dover and Matt McGorry (How to Get Away with Murder) recognized themselves having been in similar situations. It was shared from Matt McGorry that he still worked at his day job his entire time on the show and Beth Dover said, “It actually COST me money to be in season 3 and 4 since I was cast local hire and had to fly myself out.”
Myles, who played Leanne Taylor for six of the seven seasons shared that, “The first thing we say to each other when we see each other, is, like, ‘Yeah, it’s really fucked up — all my residuals are gone!’ When you’re a kid, you have this idea: once I’m on something that people actually see, I’ll be rich, and I’ll have a house that has a bathtub. And you look around after being on a hit show, and you’re, like, Wow, I’m still in the same one-bedroom apartment. Was this how it was supposed to be?”