Cast members of Orange is the New Black, a Netflix jail drama, say they were not paid fairly for their work on the show.
When it came out in 2013, it was one of only two Netflix originals, but it quickly became one of the most popular shows on the service.
It ran for a total of seven seasons and ended in 2019. During that time, Taylor Schilling, Uzo Aduba, and Danielle Brooks all became big stars.
But many of the show’s minor actors and actresses have said that they weren’t paid fairly for their time.
The claims come after the Screen Actors Guild went on strike over working conditions. This has caused a lot of stress in the TV and movie businesses.
Kimiko Glenn, Matt McGorry, and Beth Dover are among the people who say they weren’t paid enough for all the work they did.
Glenn played Brook Soso, a principled campaigner who talks a lot, for 45 episodes. He won the SAG Award for best ensemble group for this role.
But in 2020, she wrote on Instagram, which has since been shared on TikTok, that her royalty pay from the show was only $27.30.
McGorry, who played corrections officer John Bennett for the first three seasons of the show before leaving in a dramatic way, helped get the job.
‘Exactly’, he posted under the video. ‘I kept my day job the entire time I was on [OITNB] because it paid better than the mega-hit TV show we were on.’
The actor Dover, who played Linda Ferguson from the third to the sixth season and was in 33 scenes, backed up what they said.
‘Yep,’ she opened. ‘It actually cost me money to be in season three and four since I was cast local hire and had to fly myself out,’ she added.
She told The New Yorker that Netflix justifies low pay by saying they are “pinching pennies” while bragging to shareholders about how much money they are making.
Uzo Aduba, who played Suzanne Warren on OITNB, announced last month at the Tony Awards that she is pregnant.
