By Jacob Rueda
A man who works as an advertising executive lands a big account and is excited to tell his wife. However, she informs him that she's leaving him. Angry and upset, she goes out the door, her confused husband follows behind.
After a spat and a rush into the elevator, she turns around and tells him, "I don't love you anymore." He stands stone-faced looking at his now ex-wife as the doors close in front.
That is the opening scene from the 1979 legal drama Kramer vs. Kramer, starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep. The film depicts the personal struggles and legal proceedings between two parents who fight for custody of their child.
It was also the film that got 49-year-old Joshua Bitton curious about acting.
"I saw that film when I was a little kid," he said. "There's a certain level of raw truth to it, and raw connection between humans [who are] unguarded, that I found very appealing."
The role of 8-year-old Billy Kramer, played by now 52-year-old Justin Henry, was the one Bitton said he found most intriguing, going so far to call Henry's performance "remarkable."
Joshua Bitton (IMDB)
After seeing the film, Bitton thought what others have said about anything they felt compelled to achieve: "I could do that."
And while it didn't immediately launch him into a full-blown desire to act, it did plant the seed which led him to explore acting later on.
Bitton's career spans over a 20-plus year period, starting with a role in a short film called Matt in Love in 1999, according to the Internet Movie Database. Since then, he's acted regularly in television series, films, and theater, including in a modern adaptation of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing earlier this year. Although he's worked steadily throughout his career, Bitton admits he's "not famous."
Since July 14th, the unions that Bitton belongs to, the Screen Actor's Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), went on strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). The actors' strike was preceded by the Writers Guild of America strike in May.
Among the issues involved in all strikes were residuals and the use of artificial intelligence. With the three unions battling it out with the studios until a new contract is approved, production in what is colloquially referred to as "Hollywood" has stopped.
Going on strike is something Bitton said he was initially hesitant about.
"Actors in my experience love to act and when there is a strike, there is no opportunity to do so," he said. But given what the AMPTP was putting on the table, going on strike seemed like the only way to address the unions' concerns.
"What was offered, and what wasn't offered, was quite egregious and put us at a lot of risk in terms of having the potential to earn in any middle class way," Bitton said, adding further that he felt "buoyed" by the fact that 98 percent of the union voted to go on strike.
Evolving technologies have made production, along with access to movies and TV shows, easier then before. And while studios and production companies are reaping in profits, actors, especially those without name recognition, are seeing only a little of that profit go to them.
Because new technologies have changed how entertainment is made along with how people receive entertainment, Bitton said the industry is at a "tipping point."
"We have to start choosing equality in terms of pay and also protections as more things become automated," he said.
In the 1980s, videocassettes were a relatively new medium that revolutionized the entertainment industry.
The last time actors went on strike was in 1980. During that time, videocassettes were becoming more popular and accessible while cable television was taking off. Actors went on strike then for the same reason as today: emerging technologies have helped bring high profits to studios, but actors were being left behind in the profit sharing. In this day and age, digital streaming and artificial intelligence have taken the place of videocassettes and cable TV.
"Since the studios and the streamers are continuing to make money off of what we [made], we have to get some piece of that," Bitton said, "Or it becomes unsustainable for the majority of those people in the union."
When it comes to A.I., the situation gets a bit murkier in entertainment.
Other fields such as medicine and education have looked into adapting A.I. For example, researchers at University of Texas in San Antonio tested generative A.I. (artificial intelligence that responds to prompts by using text, images, or other media) in developing cancer treatments.
Shannon Ahern, an educator in Ireland, wrote an essay for Insider, saying in it how she uses ChatGPT, an A.I. powered language model, to create lesson plans and worksheets for her students.
While these uses are all well and good, Bitton's concern is less for A.I.'s innovative qualities as is for the studios' ability to use it to replace him, fellow actors, writers, and possibly others in his field.
While some fields have embraced artificial intelligence, actors and writers have been more hesitant about it.
In a July 21, 2023 press release, the AMPTP said that SAG-AFTRA failed to address certain points with regard to contract negotiations in a chart released by the actors' unions earlier in the month.
With regard to A.I., the studios said that as part of protections, producers "must obtain a background actor’s consent to use a 'digital replica' other than for the motion picture for which the background actor was hired," among other things.
Despite this, Bitton said that reducing actors to a scanned image that can be manipulated and owned in perpetuity by the studios would be robbing them of their skill and humanity.
"If you can offer that and say that it's a ground-breaking offer, then you're looking at us in the face and saying, 'I don't think of you as a person, I think of you as a meat puppet'," he said.
As mentioned earlier, actors who aren't big household names say they are not seeing the wealth one would assume comes from being in entertainment.
"I think one of the big misconceptions is that all of us out out here all a bunch of rich, over-privileged people," Bitton said.
In December of 2020, a video made by actress Kimiko Glenn revealed that for appearing in 45 episodes of the Netflix series Orange is the New Black, she made a total of $27.30.
Streaming services like Netflix have been accused of not paying actors a fair amount in residuals.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, series regulars for OITNB made $200,000 an episode while the supporting cast made less than $15,000. The money made by supporting actors in that series was such that some of them said they kept their day jobs.
Bitton, who also runs an acting school, said that at one point, he could survive on residuals from network television because those episodes would be aired again in reruns. Streaming changed all of that.
"The streaming residuals are almost none," he said. And similar to Kimiko Glenn's case, Bitton was paid marginally for starring in a guest role on a streaming series.
For appearing in one episode of the Netflix series Daredevil in 2016, Bitton said he earned "a combined total of $1,900." He also said that Netflix would not release figures as to how many times the show has been streamed or downloaded.
According to Statistia, Netflix made almost $8.2 billion in the second quarter of 2023. In 2022, their annual revenue was $31.6 billion. In 2016, the year Bitton appeared in Daredevil, Netlfix made $8.8 billion. Stretched out over 7 years, he earned $271.43 a year in residuals for appearing in one episode of Daredevil.
Bitton said that other actors whom people may be familiar with are not so financially well off, thereby dispelling the idea that glamour and wealth are guaranteed for every actor.
"There are some who have made a lot of money doing what we do," he said, "but most of us are blue-collar, union people."
Los Angeles, where Bitton lives and mainly works, is not cheap. As of this writing, the average listing price for a home in Los Angeles is $1.2 million, according to Realtor.com. The average homeowners insurance is roughly $2,000 a year. That is in addition to other necessary expenses for renters or homeowners like utilities, food, and other essentials.
Actors also have to pay for union dues, head shots, professional services (agents, lawyers. etc), personal maintenance, and other work-related expenses, plus state and federal taxes. That is all on top of other personal and obligatory expenses.
"I went to a graduate program for three years in a conservatory," Bitton said, "I'm still paying back the student loans." In the midst of earning what he and others earn as actors, he said that expenses leave little room for leisure.
With all that has happened, the future of "Hollywood" entertainment seems nebulous. On August 2, SAG AFTRA allowed some work on independent projects through interim agreements. However, the situation between actors and studios remains deadlocked.
Despite the deadlock, the AMPTP said in a statement that they're taking the strike "very seriously" and "Our only playbook is getting people back to work." Bitton said he is hopeful the strike will be resolved, but he also acknowledges the reality of the situation.
"I think we're going to be at this strike a few months," he said. While that may be the case, Bitton said he's not given up on an outcome that benefits him, the studios, and the industry as a whole.
"I'd be thrilled to get back to work, shake an executive's hand, and say 'Hey, I'm really glad to do this with you," he said, "In the end, isn't that what we all want? We want to work, we want to create."
Watch the full interview with Joshua Bitton below.
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