Hannah Montana's Jason Earles reveals how Disney gave him the 'worst contract ever': 'I got f*****'
The 48-year-old actor found fame when he was cast as Miley Cyrus' older brother on the hit sitcom 'Hannah Montana' in the late 2000s and while he earned "good" money at the time, the technicalities of his contract meant that he didn't make as much as he necessarily should have done through royalties.
Speaking on the 'Night School' podcast, he said: "This is the reality of the situation. They are really good-paying jobs. Before being on 'Hannah', I was an extra, a stand-in and a substitute teacher, and being on 'Hannah' paid significantly more than those jobs. That being said, when 'Hannah' was on, the contract was before SAG and AFTRA merged, so it was an AFTRA basic cable agreement.
"So, because of that, that is like the worst television contract that you can be under.
"One of the ways you make your money is through residuals. So if they air the episode a bunch of times, you make money on the back side.
"For 'Hannah', because it was that agreement, whatever they pay you above scale, they can credit back in your residuals.
"Let's for easy numbers, say that scale as a series regular is $5,000 an episode. And then, because you're whatever, you sign your deal and they pay you $10,000 an episode.
"So what happens is, they pay you $10,000, they air the episode, and the first $5,000 of residuals you should have gotten, they keep because they paid you upscale.
"The double whammy was, at the time, usually a reuse, is that they aired it once, and it counts as one.
"The after agreement said that if the episode was aired at noon, there was a full 24 hours to air as many times as they wanted, and it counted as one use. So I got f*****.
"You're getting double d*****."
Despite this, Jason is still "grateful" for the progression that the series gave him in his career and while he doesn't have the "generational wealth" that he feels he deserves after being a part of the billion-dollar franchise, he is "doing better" than others.
He said: "All that being said, we did 101 episodes, we did a feature film, that show led to 'Kickin It', which was another 88 episodes. So on volume alone, and I'm a frugal guy, I saved money, and I'm doing fine.
"I live in an apartment instead of a house, I feel like I should have generational wealth based on the 'Hannah' success. I don't. "But "I'm doing better than a lot of people, I'm doing better than my parents. So in some ways, I could be bitter or I could be grateful. "And I choose to be grateful.
"I hope that I have more opportunities to make up the difference now that the contracts are better."
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