The Big Picture

The Screen Actors Guild has now been on strike for one month fighting for better pay and working conditions. While promoting his directorial debut, Shaky Shivers, Sung Kang took a moment to discuss the strike. He emphasized why the fight for proper residuals in particular is deeply personal to him.

Sung Kang was able to promote his new movie Shaky Shivers which is getting a one-night-only Fathom Events release on September 21st. Why? Because he doesn’t star in the film. Shaky Shivers marks Kang’s directorial debut.

The film is a low-budget, independently produced horror comedy that shows off the creative heights one can hit with determination, a clear vision, and a team of artists who are ready and eager to give a zany concept all they’ve got. Shaky Shivers’ main characters played by Brooke Markham and VyVy Nguyen are impossibly charming as they navigate a delightful, goofy, and very bloody scenario that embraces a slew of iconic creature feature elements to great effect.

While it was wonderful to get the opportunity to highlight Kang’s work on Shaky Shivers, it was also important to emphasize why Kang could discuss that movie, but not his other projects — the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike. The Screen Actors Guild has been on strike for a month now, fighting for things that should be a given, better pay and working conditions. They’re essentially fighting for the future of their craft and, in turn, the industry as a whole.

Image via Cineverse

Kang highlighted precisely that while answering my question about the strike. Here’s what he said when asked for an example of something he didn’t have in the past as an actor that these negotiations could (and hopefully will) change:

“The strike is really representing the change in what we did have in the past. For instance, residuals. Our union has been so good at protecting our residuals so we could be able to qualify for health insurance, et cetera. I know that that’s one of the things that our union is fighting for because with streaming, a check that yearly would be $1,400 is now around $40 because streaming just doesn’t pay residuals.”

Kang continued by giving a personal example of a time when his residuals made all the difference in his life:

“When my wife was sick and she had to get medical care, you had to meet that, I think it’s around like $30,000 a year to qualify for SAG insurance. The residuals pretty much were able to cover most of that, or fill in the gaps, right? So an actor could do a few guest stars and maybe a small feature, and then the residuals would take care of the rest, but today, it’s almost nothing, right? So that’s something our union is fighting to preserve. I’m not answering your question, but that’s something that I completely agree with because it’s on such a personal level with our residuals. I definitely would not have been able to afford health care and the care that my wife needed when she was sick. So, I know that’s not answering your question, but I feel like that’s something that is very personal to me.”

Image via Cineverse

Perhaps Kang didn’t answer my precise question, but his answer better highlights what’s happened in the industry and how those changes run the risk of turning acting into an unsustainable career in the future.

Author Melissa de la Cruz shared such concerns at San Diego Comic-Con this year. “I was always encouraged to be an artist and a writer and to be creative by my parents, and I encourage my kids to do that. I don’t want to tell her, ‘When you grow up, you can only be in tech.’ I want her to feel like there’s still a thousand possibilities to be a creative person in this world.”

Kang revisited his own early days in the industry to illustrate how what was once possible is now vanishing:

“This idea of actors being able to subsidize their income by our work from the past and what the residuals allowed us to be able to have in terms of medical care and stuff, it’s going away. So it’s much, much harder. I wonder with real estate prices in LA and New York how a young actor is able to afford to be able to go to acting class and pay their rent and have a car and then gas money and have healthy food, you know? When I was younger, my rent was like $500 and I could have a little studio apartment, and I could work as a bartender and a delivery guy, and have a few part-time jobs and still make it to auditions. But today, you’re not able to do that. So, residuals are so important.”

This interview was conducted during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film being covered wouldn’t exist.