‘One Job Away’ Tries to Help Actors Keep Their Health Insurance

On Sunday, the actor Cheyenne Jackson had an epiphany while on tour for his one-man show. He thought about how his friend Kathy Bates had helped him get an uncredited role on “Matlock” last year. That single part paid him enough to qualify him for health insurance through the Screen Actors Guild, known also as SAG-AFTRA.

Jackson, an alum of shows like “30 Rock” and “American Horror Story,” decided to solicit stories from professional actors who needed just one more onscreen acting gig of any type to earn health insurance. He called the campaign “One Job Away.”

For an actor to remain insured through SAG-AFTRA, they must typically make a minimum amount of money from on-screen work and residuals. Leveraging his Instagram following of almost 750,000, Jackson began posting headshots of performers, their biographies and how many dollars away each was from crossing that threshold, which this year is $28,090.

He is hoping leading actors, producers, directors and casting agents will keep these performers in mind as they seek talent for parts big and small.

For many actors, work has been difficult to find in the aftermath of Covid, when consumers shifted away from traditional television and the production of prestige shows started to scale back. Hollywood studios, seeing dips in viewership, have ordered fewer shows than they did a decade ago. That has left once-busy actors scrambling for work.

In addition, the industry also has not recovered from grueling separate strikes by Hollywood writers and actors in 2023.