Actors' careers have foundered, because they refused anything that wasn't up to their artistic standards. Not that many prestige projects get made, any given such project may not have a role for the actor who doesn't want to do any commercial crap, and if an actor goes for a while without working and being out there where the public can see them... their popularity falls and they aren't considered to be in high demand. So sometimes, actors end up taking roles in films they know aren't that great, just to keep their name out there or to shut their agent up, or because they think they can do something with the role even if the film as a whole is never going to be much of anything.
Speaking of actors, I'm also pretty damn forgiving to the aging ones. I mean, a comfortable old age is as expensive as hell, and there aren't that many good roles out there for actors over 60 or more. So if some of the Brit theatrical knights start taking all sorts of high-paying film work when they're 65 or more, why the hell not? Judi Dench has talked about having macular degeneration and deteriorating vision, why the hell shouldn't she put some money in the bank while she still can.
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GlenEllyn (21287)
3 years ago
I think you're right. Over 65 is tough for actors. They can't be choosy and have to make money where they can. It can also be argued that younger actors doing lesser projects to stay relevant is likely an eye to future earnings. I also think there are a lot of actors who really don't make all that much money. We just imagine they do.
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Otter (24464)
3 years ago
IMHO there's a difference between "selling out", and "cashing in".
I don't blame someone for cashing in, if they have a limited time in which to make the big bucks, and that applies to all sorts of famous people - actors who are facing old age, musicians who know that their popularity won't last and who let their songs be used on commercials, writers who make paid lecture tours instead of putting more time on their Nobel Prize project. Everyone's got to earn a living and the writer on the lecture tour is going to take less time away from their big artistic project on the tour, than if they had to get a real job to keep a roof over their head. No, real selling out takes moral compromise, like if a SWJ musician let their hit song be used in commercials for a white supremacist political candidate, or an actor know for their Green activism appeared in a movie about an oil industry executive foiling some supervillain who'd made up the whole Climate Change thing.
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