I looked into actors’ current pay rates, and I was instantly speechless.

Good grief—top-tier actors’ quotes have dropped from 80 million to 20 million, and post-95 top-leading actresses’ fees have fallen by over 75%. Mid-level and lower-tier actors are in an even worse situation: after filming for a few months, the take-home pay is only 30,000 to 80,000 yuan. After deducting taxes and revenue shares, it’s still less than what an ordinary white-collar worker earns in a month.
To put it plainly, this isn’t a dip to a low point—it’s clearly a return to normal.
An extra earns 80 yuan per day, but they also have to pay for their own wardrobe expenses. When you calculate it out, the hourly pay comes to less than 9 yuan. An extra hour of overtime only adds another 10 yuan. With that income, in Hengdian they can barely even cover rent.
But look again— even if the fees get slashed again and again, those A-list stars earning 20 million for a single production already have enough to cover what an ordinary person would earn from working since the Qin Dynasty until now.
An actress who has left the industry said that she earns only 4,000 yuan a month, while the male lead in the same show can make 500,000 yuan in a single day. Even if the gap shrinks now, what’s still between them is a galaxy that an ordinary person can’t cross in multiple lifetimes.
So, if actors’ fees have dropped, should they be reduced further? Absolutely. This industry should have squeezed out the excess water long ago. What do you think—how low should actors’ fees be for it to be considered reasonable?