It is all a far cry from what Burgess expected when he arrived in the United States some 16 years ago.
"LA was always the goal for me, because I was raised on 'X-Files' and 'Buffy' and 'Twin Peaks' and 'Star Trek.' They were the shows that I loved, so that was where I gravitated towards," he said.
By coincidence, he arrived from England right in the middle of the last writers' strike, which lasted for 100 days in 2007-08.
"Back then, casting directors were meeting people in person. I met more casting directors in three weeks of being in LA than I had done in three years of being in London," he recalled.
Since the pandemic, most auditions are "self-taped," meaning actors have to film themselves reading lines, and send in a video clip that may never be watched.
Limiting this practice was another union demand in talks with studios that collapsed this week.
Still, Burgess says he wouldn't trade the job for any other.
"We're artists, we're actors and writers and creators, and I think sometimes that's taken advantage of -- studios know that we love what we do," he said.
"If we're offered a job for minimum scale, if we say no, there's going to be 450 other actors right behind you, who will be like, 'Yep, I'll do it.'"
Source: AFP
