It's important to remember that not all actors get paid big money, and that TV actors especially getting rich off of their popular shows is a relatively recent phenomenon. Like yeah if the show was named after you, and you negotiated your contract right, you could get a massive payday, but Wee Willy was never that popular or that central, and by the time TNG was popular enough that he could have renegotiated for better money he'd been written off the show. And as said, he was basically an overglorified cameo in Eureka and Big Bang Theory, they weren't going to be paying him six figures an episode, and I doubt he got royalties.
He's definitely squandering the money, too... not just on himself, but on the aforementioned idiot ventures like the web shows and craft beer and whatnot. If you look at them without the goggles of seeing him as "nerd king" you see them for what they are, a series of get rich quick schemes, which have of course all failed to do exactly that. He's basically become the oaf brother-in-law character from a sitcom.
Per Industry Relative, this is accurate.
And its not even TV, its movies too Unless you are the top .01% in hollywood talent, you are making about normie wages when it all averages out and you subtract shit like Agent commission and SAG dues. The reason people put up with it for the perks - fame & the associated benefits it brings.
I know everyone's like 'LAWL Oh yeah famous Wil Wheaton', but if you believe Wil would have gotten his wife to marry him if he hadn't been Wesley Crusher, you're high.
There is also a good chance Wil is making side money not just doing conventions but also doing menial jobs for the Film industry.
The tl;dr is that Hollywood is this fucked up alternate world of feudal fiefdoms and petty bickering. You can't just bring outsiders in to do a lot of the work (especially involving actors) because they won't 'get it' and will make a huge gaff. So when you need to do something like "do a preread with people at casting calls to weed out the complete incompetents" or "tell the scriptwriter their draft sucks", or even "act as a unit of measure to help the set builder block out where things go", they usually like bring in some z-listers with a few appearances under their belt because they know how things work. (also because they are never tied up in anything for longer than a day, always hungry for work, and will work for peanuts because its 'exposure')
Bruce Campbell talks about this with Army of Darkness, where he netted about $200,000 in 1990s dollars for his role - which was a good chunk of change. Except shopping and shooting the film tool four years, and he had to be available for dubbing and reshoots, so that ended up being $50,000/year; not povery house money, but not amazing either. He also had to wait for the movie to be released to see a portion of that, so while Raimi was fighting with the studio Campbell had to get a job as a night watchman so he could be available for AoD shoots and look for other jobs.
And that's for a guy who starred in a film most people have at least heard of.
His voice isn’t pleasant to listen to. It’s bad enough having to hear it in 22-45 minute bursts on TV, imagine subjecting yourself to that for fifteen fucking hours.
Good to know.
www.audible.com
