The 'Almost Famous' actress opens up about the very small sum she receives from the streaming of the classic holiday movie 'Home Alone 2: Lost in New York'.
- Feb 16, 2024
AceShowbiz - Kate Hudson receives 10-cent residual cheques for her cameo in "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York". It's a little-known fact that the "Almost Famous" star, 44, starred as a child in the 1992 sequel to the 1990 Chris Columbus comedy film starring Macaulay Culkin, 43, in the lead role of Kevin McCallister, and she revealed she still gets paid a teeny sum from streams.
"I still get residuals from Home Alone 2 because I sang in the chorus. I'm in that chorus, and then I get 10 cents every once in a while," she spilled on her "Sibling Revelry" podcast to special guests, siblings Joey, Matthew and Andy Lawrence.
A lot of actors have called out the abysmal residual payments they receive, and it was part of the reasons for the Hollywood actors' strike last year. Mandy Moore was among those actors calling out studios and revealed the "very tiny" paycheques she receives from the streams of "This Is Us".
The 39-year-old actress - who portrayed Rebecca Pearson in the award-winning drama from 2016 to 2022 - joined the picket line outside Disney in Burbank, California, last summer amid the SAG-AFTRA actors' strike.
And she revealed she gets around "81 cents" since Hulu bought the series from NBC in 2017. She told The Hollywood Reporter, "The residual issue is a huge issue."
"We're in incredibly fortunate positions as working actors having been on shows that found tremendous success in one way or another … but many actors in our position for years before us were able to live off of residuals or at least pay their bills."
She added, "I was talking with my business manager who said he’s received a residual for a penny and two pennies."
"Scandal" star Katie Lowes also received mere pennies for the streams from her Netflix series, and insists it's impossible to live off residual payments.
She said, "If you are someone who has been fortunate enough in our positions to do 120-plus episodes of a successful show in previous years - 10, 15, 20 years ago - that re-airing would be the thing that could sustain you on years where I did this smaller project or I wanted to go do a play or you have kids and you have a family to provide for. And that just not a reality anymore. The entire model has changed."
The Screen Actors Guild union ordered a strike across TV, theatrical, and streaming productions, which marked the biggest shutdown in Hollywood for more than 60 years, on top of the Writers Guild Strike, meaning that the majority of entertainment projects in the US ceased production.
The strikes were over concerns over wages for actors and creators in the industry, the rise in AI technology, and how the profits of digital streaming on services such as Netflix and Disney+ can be divided.
