Craig Charles

[Aractus]

• You’re an actor, comedian, presenter, author and 6 Music DJ. Of all your commercial ventures, which has been most lucrative?
  
  I suppose Red Dwarf has been very lucrative because it’s been sold to so many countries, still gets repeated today and towards the end we were getting paid an awful lot. Repeat fees are a percentage of what we got paid. It’s such a nice surprise because I never know when they’re going to land on the carpet and I say, “Wow!” because the episode was 20 years ago. For the first series, I was paid £600 an episode in 1987, a year when wages were high. It was good but wasn’t even half what Chris Barrie was getting. When I found out I kicked up a storm.

What doesn't he realise that Chris Barrie can actually act and is the real star of the show, not him? Or the fact that it was his arrest and trial over rape allegations (also tied to his cocaine use) in 1995 that delayed series VII being made.

Is he serious, or doesn't he realise that for £600 he was far more recastable in season 1 than Barrie was? Or for that matter Lovett. And they never caused production delays by having to defend charges of gang-rape in court.

[jesus_wept]

I'd ban copyright, repeat fees etc and bring these people in line with the rest of the world. He did his job and got paid well for it, £600 is still a good wage now (most people I know don't earn it a week), and that should be it. If everyone else got paid like this nothing would get done and the world would grind to a standstill. I'm a tiler and I don't get paid everytime somebody walks on my floors, if they did I would've retired after a train station I did years ago, and the bloke who designed the bus doesn't get commision everytime somebody buys a ticket. The idea is ridiculous if anyone else wants it, but it's a case of one rule for them and another for the rest of us when it comes to actors, popstars and sport stars because they think they're special and deserve special treatment.

But my real gripe is where the money comes from, if red dwarf fans want to support Craig Charles retirement fund that's up to them, but they don't and the money is instead taken off people with absolutely no interest in it through advertising, sponorships, licence fees, etc etc. Theyre basically being subsidised by people who don't earn money sitting on their backsides all day, who have never earned £600 for doing their job and don't care about them or their programmes.

And then, to top it off, you then get the wankers asking for our money on comic relief (or whatever tax avoixance scheme theyre currently working on), while they pay accountants more money than we earn to avoid paying taxes and giving any money to the people they're asking us to help.

Basically, screw Craig Charles and his first world problems, and all celebrities in general. The rest of us are too busy supporting the ponces while struggling on minimum wage to care about their bullshit.

And I'm sorry about the rant everyone, it's a subject I can't help but get very passionate about.

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I'm not sure why you think a rape case in 1995 has any relevance on how much he earned in 1986 either, did the producers have a crystal ball they looked into so they knew what was going to happen in the future and adjusted the wages accordingly? "Right, in 9 years he's going to delay production on series seven while he's accused of rape. Let's dock his wages now"

It doesn't make much sense to me.

[Aractus]

Well it just shows he clearly hasn't been the easiest person to work with, somewhat like Martin Sheen's son Carlos Estévez. And the fact is that he's complaining about it NOW, 20 years after HE caused a 2-year delay for all of his co-stars, the writers, the producers, everyone. And that was probably mostly due to his coke addiction, which got more press around 2006 or so. So yeah, he's looking back now and complaining about it after he caused that problem. He could at least have the humility to admit that his actions and behaviour cost everyone work, time, and money.

But yeah you're right, actors are often overvalued. However, I can tell you that in Australia around 90% of actors are out of work, which means on average an actor gets to work only 10% of the time. Which is why many of them leave, and also the problem with having so much crap reality television, and in fact I can do a whole 'nother thread on that, and I will since I've got an article relevant to it and I can expose Pete Evans and "MKR" for what it is - an overproduced illusion of a contest.