- Sarah Pribis is a working actor who also makes TikToks explaining her range of jobs and pay.
- She's played a toenail on a fungal treatment ad and a panda in a New Year's Eve show.
- An actor's pay can be unpredictable, with odd jobs sometimes earning more, she told Insider.
This as-told-to essay is based on conversations with Sarah Pribis, 36, a working actor who has built a career through roles in commercials, Christmas movies, and hosting jobs — who's had the periodic odd gig that paid unusually well. Insider verified her earnings with documentation she provided.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
I made about $6,500 in my first role as a stand-in for a commercial
What a stand-in does is stand in for the main talent while the production sets up lighting and framing for the shot.
My agent set me an audition. Within a week, I found out I booked it and also that it would be the following day. I also did not know how much this was going to pay. It's hard to decipher rates a lot of the time.
I actually assumed that it would be somewhere around $200 a day, because that is what the stand-in rate is for Screen Actors Guild theatrical contracts.
One thing that you'll see as a throughline for the way that I approach work is that I approach it from a posture of curiosity. If there's something that I haven't done before, I'm like, "Oh, great, this is going to be an adventure," or, you never know where something might lead.
I had never done stand-in work before. As an actor, I really like to try to have every experience possible, and because I have my social media channels that are dedicated to actor life, I thought it would be a really cool opportunity to do a post on what it looks like to do stand-in work.
I got that paycheck, I don't know, maybe like a month later or something like that. It was a bunch of checks that added up to around $6,500. I was absolutely gobsmacked. I was like, how lucky am I!
The reasons that I've gathered that it was so much — because this is not the norm for stand-in work — is that it was a commercial job, and commercial rates for stand-in work are higher. It was the weekend: Weekend rates are higher. We went into overtime, both days, so that's extra money. And we were shooting multiple spots at once. It was for a product that had different flavors. So rather than just shoot one commercial, we were shooting essentially, I think, eight different spots.
You can't be on your phone, because you're looking into the lens like the talent would be. So it's not lazy work where you can kind of just sit there, scroll your phone. You do have to be alert and attentive.
I think the days were 10 to 12 hour days, something like that.
I've built a career as a working actor and want to demystify the experience
I've been doing this since I was 18. I went to NYU Tisch and majored in theater there, and just stayed in New York and did the working actor grind ever since.
Working in TV films, commercials. I started originally in theater, but moved out of that. I also do a lot of hosting work. I would say one of my bigger claims to fame is hosting "HQ Trivia." I've been in indie films.
To contextualize it a bit, I'd like to point to some of the odd jobs that I've done.
I was in a full panda costume on New Year's Eve for "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest." That job paid me around $1,000. We were on camera for all of 60 seconds.
What I sought out to tell people through social media is that I've wanted to demystify the working actor experience, and be the big sister that I wish I had while I was in theater school and in my early 20s. And really remove the shame that comes often with these non-glamorous jobs.
I thought there were Hollywood A-listers and then there were starving artists, but no in-between. And I work only in the in-between.
So really showing that being an actor runs from being in a CW show to doing stand-in work for Chloe Fineman to being in a full panda costume. I have a commercial airing right now where I'm a toenail on TV, like literally my face is on a toenail. They shot it on green screen, and my mouth and my voice are just on a toenail; it's for Kerasal antifungal treatment.
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