How much do professional actors cost?

To shoot a film for six months for $80,000, you’ll need actors to pay you.

It depends on the actor. The highest paid actors get millions for their work. I’m sure there are some that would work for much less, but I wouldn’t know where to find them at.

You’ll need to find either desperate professional actors or actors who are loaded already and don’t care for a project that isn’t going to give them much money or actors who love your project and your script and just want to help you out because they see you as a promising movie maker.
I think it is important first to get to know the circuit of film makers and actors and for them to get to know you.

I’m in the writing process still and I will be for 5 years. I wanna make the script really good

Six months production on a 80k budget? That is going to be extremely difficult. To find actors who are willing to work on a project like that – the script would have to be utterly brilliant. Famous actors have been known to work for free on certain films because the script was so good & they just wanted to be a part of it. Five years to write the script? You better hope it is the next Shawshank or Casablanca. Because that is a really long time. Also, if your username is an accurate representation of the work you want to do… get used to doing edits & complete re-writes in a matter of weeks, not years.

I want desperate actors to. To do what? If they’re members of Actors’ Equity, they will expect to be paid. You might be able to find students who are getting a Master’s in Performance.

Professional Actors who belong to the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) are paid a minimum of $115 a day as extras, and $248 a day for feature actors.

Non-SAG films can pay any amount that a non-union actor will agree to work for. However, a non-SAG film would have a hard time finding a theater willing to show it.

5 years for practice and pure effort. I could write a script in under a year though.

I still didn’t get a price.

And are some of you
suggesting 6 months is too long or too short?

How much would acting students getting a masters degree in acting cost?
Or middle aged unemployed or underemployed actors?
Or actors in their late 20s/early 30s?

I recommend reaching out to these two very talented young men: Lyman Creason and Lawerence Chen. Lyman is shooting Emelia, a full length film for about $7,500, and a lot of Lawrence’s diverse portfolio of work is on YouTube.

Are you planning on going to a college with a film program? Depending on where you are, you can often get undiscovered talent for almost nothing by using other students.

I’m sure you could find some good actors and just pay them with beer. That’s what I did when I made a short film. :)

@YARNLADY Sag extras normally get paid hourly. $15 minimun.

check out concertideas.com, its just to give you an idea of how much comedians can charge for simple 3 hour shows at universities. For example, Adam Sandler charges $175,000 for one event, maybe the site will give you some cost analysis perspective…

@christos99 that has nothing to do with the question I asked. I’m definately not trying to make a low budget film with famous movie stars.

Do you follow this site?

@iwannamakemovies What part of your budget is for paying the actors? How long are you going to be filming? You really don’t have much of a choice. There’s alot of desperate actors. Good luck!

I think it’s great you have goals and want to explore the movie industry. However, that being said I read one of your previos questions You are young, get through school, earn your allowance and try not to get in out of your head thinking finance- until you are able to put in your share. How would you even get $80,000 in the first place? You may need to slow it down and hone your skills first. Networking and making conncetions is crucial. Try some youtube stuff if you want, but don’t expect to make $ off of it. But get good at makeing the movies first. Then find out more about paying actors and such. You would have to break down your script to undestand how much you would need.

settle down, settle down… have you even visited the website? I understood the question very well…simply giving you an idea of no name people charging lots of bank… if low budget really means “low” budget, then find some talented friends, or visit some artistic universities/college’s for desperate actors/actresses, and hire an attorney in the case the movie becomes a huge success…

in addition, 5 years for a low budget script?!!! invest your 80 grand in bonds, cd’s possibly even ira/rira’s and you’ll have a better investment… a great script doesn’t need 5 years of planning, e.g., see attached… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-budget_film

I’ll do it. I’m unemployed and have a lot of free time. I’m never acted but I’m good at pretending. I won’t cut my beard though. =)

Median salaries for actors. The average annual income for a member of SAG is $5,000 per year. The median salary for a working actor is about $23,000 a year.

This response is a bit late, but I’m just figuring out how much it would cost so I can save it up, or see if my goal is realistic or not. I know I’m too young to make a feature length film. It’s just on my bucket list (and something I wanna do as a career), so I could do it 15 years from now, or maybe 20, maybe 30. I already got the idea for the film, though, and I’m developing it. Thanks anyways for the answers. This site is 1000xx better than Yahoo Answers!