On this week's episode, I have actor Chris Gorham, (Out of Practice, The Lincoln Lawyer, NCIS: Los Angeles and many many more) and we dive into the origins of his career. We also discuss the work-life balance he has with his family and some of the things he wishes more actors were aware of while filming. There is so much more, so tune in.

Show Notes

Chris Gorham on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrisgorham/

Chris Gorham IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0330913/

Chris Gorham on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Gorham

Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/course

Free Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/free

Join My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletter

Autogenerated Transcript

Chris Gorham:

But in getting to know them and talking to them, Almost all of them had day jobs, like worked for the city, Worked, worked for construction crews. They had full-on-day Jobs. Some of them were Entrepreneurs, some of them worked in government. And that was a New idea to me because that hadn't been my experience here. But as the income and equality has increased so dramatically, It feels like that's where our business has been going, where everybody has to have another,

Michael Jamin:

You are listening to, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity. I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.

Chris Gorham:

Like my backdrop, this is my, oh, I love it. Official SAG after LA delegate backdrop that we used him during the convention.

Michael Jamin:

I know you're a big show. We're starting already. I'm here with Chris Gorham, and he is an actor I worked with many years ago on a show called Out of Practice. He's one of the stars that was a show with starting Henry Winkler, stocker Channing, Ty Burrell, Chris Gorham, and Paul Marshall. It was a great show on CBS and only lasted a season. But Chris, Chris is about as successful working actors as you can, short of being like someone like Brad Pitt, who's known across the world. You've done a ton of TV shows, and I'm going to blow through them real fast here.

Chris Gorham:

Okay. You can, I can't talk about them still, but your strike is over so you can,

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, right, because Chris is, I guess he's in sag and actually you're one of the members, you're one of the, what do you call yourself, the king? So

Chris Gorham:

I'm the king of SAG aftra. No, I was elected to be on the LA local board and also elected as a delegate. So that's what this background was. Our official LA delegate background for

Michael Jamin:

The research delegate for for the model. What does that mean

Chris Gorham:

For the convention? Yeah. It's kind of reminiscent of Model un. So it's the convention that happens every two years where all the delegates get together and we elect the executive vice president, and there's certain offices that get elected by the delegate membership.

Michael Jamin:

I don't think we have that in the Writer's Guild. I think we have a direct democracy. You, I guess have a representative democracy.

Chris Gorham:

Yeah. Yeah. It's a much bigger union. How big

Michael Jamin:

Is it? How big do you know? About

Chris Gorham:

160,000 members.

Michael Jamin:

Wow. Okay. Members, but that's active members. And what do you have to be to be an active member?

Chris Gorham:

What do you have to be? Do

Michael Jamin:

You have to sell? You have to work a certain amount or something?

Chris Gorham:

No, once you're in, you can stay in as long as you pay your dues

Michael Jamin:

Every year. Oh, okay. But then that doesn't mean you get health. You have to qualify for health insurance and stuff like that. Correct.

Chris Gorham:

Well, it's a big part of the strike. It's one of our big talking points really is only about 13% and just under 13% earn enough to qualify for our healthcare plan. And I mean, that's only about $26,700 a year to qualify for healthcare.

Michael Jamin:

That's a big deal. I mean, healthcare, healthcare. So most people don't realize this, and it seems so naive to say this, but I get so many comments when on social media, all these actors are millionaires. Dude, what are you talking about? You can be a working actor and book two gig. You're lucky if you do two gigs a year. And

Chris Gorham:

Well listen, it goes to the heart of what this strike is about is that it's worse than people even think because just to what's the best way to talk about it? So a big part of our asked during this negotiation is a big increase in the contributions to our health and pension plan by the producers. And the reason is that they haven't increased it in a long, long, long, long time. So for instance, one person could work, let's say you got hired to do an episode and got paid very well, right? For one episode. Let's say you're getting it, it's an anthology show. They're paying the top two people like series regulars, and you're getting a hundred grand for one episode. So you would think a hundred thousand dollars. That is a lot of money for one episode. If I'm doing that, I am clear. Definitely qualify. You do not qualify for healthcare because you've only done one episode and the producers only have to contribute up to a certain amount. So even though you've made a hundred grand in one episode, you still have to book another job, at least one more

Michael Jamin:

And clear,

Chris Gorham:

Not going to qualify for healthcare.

Michael Jamin:

I've produced a lot of shows. I don't recall ever paying a guest star anywhere close to a hundred thousand an episode. No, not even close.

Chris Gorham:

No, no. And the minimums have, right now, I think for a drama, the minimum's around $9,000, maybe a little more than that for an episode for top of Show guest start like the top paid guest shows on those shows. Yeah, you can't. And it's become almost impossible to negotiate a rate higher than the minimums.

Michael Jamin:

You can have a quote and they go, well, that's too bad. This is what we're paying you.

Chris Gorham:

Correct. This is what we're paying you.

Michael Jamin:

Let me just run through some of yours so people know who we're talking about because some people are listening to it. So Chris is, I'm going to blow some of his bigger parts, but he works so much. So let's start with Party of Five where you did four episodes, which I love that show. I just had to mention that, but of course, popular. You did a ton of those. Felicity, remember that? Odyssey five, Jake 2.0, which you started in medical investigation out of practice, which I mentioned Harper's Island Ugly Betty, Betty Laa, which I loved, of course, covert Affairs and what else? I'm going through your list here. Full Circle two Broke Girls. You worked with two of the broke girls and insatiable the Lincoln lawyer, and that doesn't include any of your guest chart. So you are incredibly successful actor and you've strung, actually, I want to hit on something. Sure. So this is a little embarrassing on my part. We had a technical, this is our second interview because I had technical errors on my point. I'm not that good with technology, even though I've done well over a hundred episodes of this, and Chris graciously allowed me to do this over. But one of the things that you said, the thing that struck me the most during our last talk, which I found incredibly interesting and humble, I said to you, Chris, how do you choose your roles? And do you remember what you said to me?

Chris Gorham:

Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. I said, I should be so lucky. Yeah. The reality is, it's like actors like me. I've had a lot of conversations with actors like me who star on television shows, multiple television shows, and we all joke about how many times we've been asked in interviews. The question

Michael Jamin:

Really,

Chris Gorham:

Why did you choose this to be your next project?

Michael Jamin:

Right. Well, I wanted to eat. That's why.

Chris Gorham:

Yeah, yeah. Because I think journalists sometimes forget, and they think that we're all to use your example, Brad Pitt, and that we're being sent scripts and we get to choose what our next project is, but in reality, that is not at all. What happens, what happens for the vast majority of us is we are sent auditions. Sometimes we get the scripts, sometimes we don't. And we put ourselves now what used to be going to the casting office. Now we put ourselves on tape and we send it off into the void, and we hope that we get hired.

Michael Jamin:

And you'll work on a part. When you do get the script, how long will you spend preparing for that before you submit your tape?

Chris Gorham:

Oh, it depends mostly on two things. One, how many pages it is, and then it depends on how well written it's, to be honest. You've heard this before.

Michael Jamin:

Go ahead. Tell me.

Chris Gorham:

The better the writing, the easier it is to memorize.

Michael Jamin:

Right. And exp