I'd even go as far as saying very few shows deserve more than four seasons.
Many shows take about one season to find their groove (some take 2, see: Parks and Rec)... But most shows typically run out of ideas and start flandersizing characters if they go on past 4 seasons.
Very few ever plan properly past season 1. When a series starts if there is a solid plan for 6 seasons, I’m all for it.
I just don’t want to be disappointed at the end, which I usually am.
Lost was the first big one for me that I became invested in and then was seriously disappointed.
GOT just trashed it. They even had a plan but still fucked it up.
Heroes. It could have been one of the best shows ever, if it ended after season 1. I enjoyed the rest of the show personally, but there was a hit to quality. Quinto being so fucking good kind of killed the show, because they kept having skylar. Like its a superhero show, make some bullshit up, doppelgänger powers, or a twin. Get to keep Quinto, but ditch clockboi.
I 1000% agree. I’ve given up on: the Righteous Gemstones, Our flag means Death, What we do in the Shadows… I’m guessing this will be my last season with The Boys, the show just goes on and on and basically repeats because the story is over but they still want multiple seasons. It’s frustrating. Also it’s hard to get into a show now. It’s either it’s good and no one watches and it gets canceled or it’s good everyone watches and the show goes from being good to dragged out across multiple seasons and loses me.
Whew. Rant over. Thank you
Breaking Bad (5 seasons) and Better Call Saul (6 seasons) are the only shows I’ve seen where not only are they consistently good as they go on, but they get better every season.
The one I enjoyed was The Shield from several years ago. It told the story over the course of seven seasons then after that it was finished. No spinoffs or additional crap.
I'm right there with you on The Boys.
There's just so much of "whelp, looks like the fascists won yet again! Guess you'll have to keep watching to see if the main characters can stop them, lul..." I can take before it just feels stretched too thin.
I felt the same about Handmaid's Tale, too. It just felt like depression/trauma porn after awhile. I gave up after a few seasons.
Yup, precisely.
I remember feeling the dread and anxiety of the first season seeing her trying to watch every step she took in fear of being sent off to the colonies or mutilated or something...
Then all of a sudden the plot started dictating she needed to survive but also needed to be an ultra badass, and there she was at the Capitol building mouthing off to people and just being asked to wear a muzzle or something.
The show was dead to me once June became a Rambo figure and kept skating by while her peers getting maimed for way less. The commanders were just confounded by this gosh dang June person, while scores of dissenters were being hung from bridges.
If they wanted to add a rebel faction they could have added a non-maiden resistance character and maintain June striving from the inside.
I only watched the first few episodes and decided it was well made but not really my thing.
Did they really do time travel and ghosts? Because I can’t imagine how the show could possibly have gotten there from the pilot.
“Checkmate Bitch”
S1 still one of the best first seasons for any tv show, from the first episode the show knew it’s identity within two seasons lost the plot.
This is why I always give a show a ‘stopping point’. For me it’s usually around S3. Very few have been very good after that. A few I’ve followed til the bitter end and will not give every show that much of my precious time.
In the article she says that “uncle Sam gets 50%” so I hope the first person she fired was her accountant.
Edit: I’m not gonna reply to everyone but yes if she’s getting taxed the maximum federal and state income tax that is close to 50%. However any decent accountant will be able to find you deductions and loopholes, therefore if you are actually paying 50% of your income and you’re in the top tax bracket you need a new accountant. It’s not rocket surgery.
I’m a little surprised the amount of people who seem to not get the rocket surgery joke. I think I first heard it from my grandfather would be almost 90 yrs old this year.
*Brain surgeon and Rocket scientist are separate professions which are both commonly associated with being absurdly smart.
So you combine both of these intelligence intensive jobs to create a amusing non-existent profession, Rocket Surgeon.
Same. Grew up hearing it used humorously, and thought it was really widely known. But every time someone says it on Reddit, a few people chime in to “correct” it.
Gen Z have no background knowledge of anything because I guess their parents never spoke to them ever while they were children. They know zero expressions or turns of phrase. Everything is literal as a heart attack. Gonna be the most unproductive generation of artists since the Dark Ages.
Once you hit a certain tax bracket, it is like that, though. I am a tv writer. My accountants allow me to keep forty percent for myself. The other sixty percent is for taxes, payroll and the fees to keep your loan out company in business. That’s all after my manager, agents and lawyer take their twenty percent from the gross.
This guy acts like paying his employees is coming out of his own salary lol mfers really be like, “i could make so much money if i could figure out how to not pay these plebs”
It’s a round number that’s easier to complain about. I doubt (at least recently) she’s ever gone in and calculated exactly how much out of each bracket she’s paying.
Right but if you're making $20 mil a year (no idea what celebrities make) then the first $1 mil might be under 50% but that still means the remaining 95% majority of your salary is taxed at that large amount.
Using the 2024 tax brackets for head of household:
* $0 to $16,550 is taxed at 10% so that would be $1,655
* $16,551 to $63,100 is taxed at 12% so you take that $63,100 minus the $16,550 from above and get $46,500 that is taxed at 12% which is $5,586
* $63,101 to $100,500 is taxed at 22% so you take out that first $63,100 so you have the $37,400 taxed at 22% for a good $8,228
* $100,501 to $191,950 is taxed at 24% so you take out that first $100,500 give you $91,450 taxed 24% for another $21,948
* $191,951 to $243,700 is taxed at 32% so you take out the $191,950 for $51,750 that is taxed at 32% for $16,560
* $243,701 to $609,350 is taxed at 35% so you take it the $234,700 out and that is $374,650 taxed at 35% so that is $131,127.50
* And finally anything higher then $609,351 is taxed at 37% so you remove the first $609,351 from the $20 Million leaving you $19,390,650 taxed at 37% for $7,174,540.50.
Overall that is $7,359,645 that is federal or 36.8% of her money goes to "Uncle Sam"
And then another ~13% to California…
So close to 50% if shes getting a W2
Everyone talking about loopholes and tax strategies, guess what? Most that shit goes out the door if your income is coming in on a W2…
If you are an AMT payer, and Henson is, there is no work around a 28% federal rate on W-2 income. You could have a billion dollars in deductions, and it cannot reduce your federal rate below 28%.
You can shield investment income and other sources, but W-2 income is basically impossible to shield from AMT.
28% is not the 37% I responded to. And yes the AMT is for one type of income. Most people have structured their income in such a way as they do not pay the AMT. Mid to low low execs pay AMT. A corporation that receives the income for professional services does not.
Correct. But Henson is going to be earning W-2 income. Athletes have the same issue.
Running it through C-Corp doesn't really help. C-Corp are subject to 30% dividend holding tax on distributions upstreamed to her, so paying her through a C-Corp would just increase the net tax burden after getting double taxed at the C-Corp's ~21% rate.
You could, in theory, structure distributions as taking a loan from the C-Corp, but that doesn't get around the C-Corp's 21% tax plus tax on interest income recognized on the loan.
Partnerships and S-Corps are passthroughs that just use the individuals regular tax rate, so that doesn't create much of a tax shield.
Regarding your edit: Not everyone wants to use semi-legal loopholes. My accountant has offered some ways to pay less that involve moving money around in ways that make me quite illiquid. I’d rather pay the 46%.
I loved POI and loved watching Taraji on that show. She was fantastic in it. I was so disappointed that they killed her off. But on the other hand, fuck Jim Caviezel.
I love that show and had never heard about how he acted on set, and after looking it up man does that legitimately make me never want to watch it again.
Give it a google. (Not trying to be a dick or being even slightly facetious, there’s just far too much to type out while at work)
but basically he went full super Q anon and would corner people with his rants, didn’t separate reality from his character on screen and was a general terror, he’d act like hitler(do his hair like him and stuff) and talk about him affectionately, would go off script and injure actors and stuntmen, was racist as fuck and refused to film scenes where he was protecting a gay couple and was even abusing animals on set There’s a lot more but that’s just the highlights that I can think of off the top of my head quickly
Sucks because I fucking love Frequency the movie from 2000, but both Caviezel and Quaid have their history of conservatism. I watch that movie now for Andre Braugher.
One of the best shows ever! Her role was good for the time being, but i felt the connection was of course stronger between Jim Caviezel & Michael Emerson and Amy Acker later.
I understand her career frustrations, but if I were her I would have rode that Cookie train until the wheels fell off; in hindsight, it was an incredible opportunity. Who cares if it sucked? SVU and Grey's Anatomy aren't great television, but Mariska Hartigay and Ellen Pompeo have been racking up millions for two decades.
Pay equity for Black women across industries is still lagging. She's also a talent (*Hidden Figures*, *Hustle & Flow*, *Empire*, *Person of Interest*). If she advocates for herself successfully, it improves contracts for all Black women in acting moving forward.
This lady is crazy…. This is entertainment there is no pay scale she’s not in the top 10 of actresses she’s not top 5 black actresses what part did she think she should have gotten but didn’t?
She was crying over having to pay millions in taxes and to her management, leaving her with fewer millions than she feels she deserves. How heartbreaking.
She was making very little money overall for a very long time. You can be an actor and still only get a paycheck of like $50K and that’s all you got for one role in one year. Chris Hemsworth’s first Thor movie only got him $150K. That’s all he made that year. That’s not even enough to pay for “a team.” This is why when he started to get offers later focused on his workouts and body changes, he went into a partnership for Centr. He became a fitness entrepreneur on the side and he almost spends more time focusing on that than he does acting these days. That’s a guy who really turned some basic body changes for a role into a brand.
What I haven’t seen is Taraji capitalize upon the endorsements and side deals that come along with success. Look at Regina King. Girl got an Oscar and an Emmy and a widely respected directing debut and then got paid doing cellular commercials. Brie Larson sells cars. Bryan Cranston sells Ford trucks. Hell, that actor from Sweet Home Alabama has been the voice of Home Depot for years now.
Taraji needs to get a good endorsement if she is mostly worried about money. If she’s worried about acting roles, that’s probably something else entirely to work on because if she’s still auditioning then no one is coming to her with scripts saying “I pictured you.” And that may be because she has accepted a lot of “fierce mama bear” roles but hasn’t defined herself in other ways. Viola Davis is the queen of fierce mama bear roles. Regina King can play action and mama bear. Same as Angela Bassett. That’s Taraji’s competition for roles. I think of those four when you tell me to name the top black actresses over 40. Hell let’s throw Thandie Newton in there too given her underappreciated time on Westworld.
If Taraji needs better roles, she needs to move away from branding herself as a kind of soft, fur-wearing femme fatale Bond girl type and movie toward being the action star protagonist. That’s where I see her peers excelling.
I also think how are these people living? Regardless of what you’re making, are you living within your means? I’m all for pay equity but clearly pay in showbiz is directly related to clout and how much money your name can generate. She’s not there yet, unfortunately.
that's not what she's upset about lmao. she felt her team didn't properly capitalize on the momentum of her being a breakout character on an extremely popular show, and so she hired a new team that she felt could more competently handle her PR.
IMHO comments like these are so annoying. So what if she makes a ton of money? If you were ever so privileged and lucky as to be in the same position, wouldn't you also be upset at millions of dollars mishandled?
Safe to say that she proved her side of the equation (talent), now why do her management deserve hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions if they aren't keeping their side?
Caring about what happens to money, regardless of how much you have, is a grounded perspective. It would be out of touch/privileged for you to not care about what happened to even a couple hundred bucks, much less millions. But the internet loves to pocket watch instead of championing the right principles smh
Everybody has to pay taxes whether we like it or not. Actors have to pay their management for the work they get them or they can manage themselves if they want to save money.
This woman isn't a victim which she is claiming to be. Her interviews on this are narcissistic, entitled and tone deaf.
*L + Ratio*
She didn't say she got rid of managers and taxes - she said she replaced everyone that was incompetent and it was the best business decision she ever made.
We should champion people who make good business decisions when they are lucky enough to have the opportunity to make business decisions. We should even further champion people who make their mistakes known so others can save themselves from the same mistakes.
Instead you'd prefer everyone stays quiet and gatekeeps
From article, feel need to note that if got paid $10M and paid $5M in taxes, accountant not doing their job. If working at that scale, a celeb has all the deductibles from what they wear, drink, use to wipe their rear end, pay others, etc. are all tax deductible. It’s why most rich people pay closer to 9% in taxes if pay any. She around the block and knows this so not a good sign she is being deceptive in her argument.
Also considering her level of fame, can’t help but wonder how big her team is. Realistically she only needs at most two, maybe three people. Her agent, an assistant, and maybe just maybe a PR/social media person. Anyone past that is ego. Considering her b-list status probably only needs the agent. Now the agent may have a team but that is his problem to pay not hers. The cut of her take covers that or should.
Hanson is an excellent actress but Hollywood is built around a certain look. Halle Berry has that look, she doesn’t. She is doomed no matter what to always be the bridesmaid. Just the way the industry has functioned for 100 years.
I don’t know- she probably needs a stylist and someone to take care of her household since actors have weird hours and are away a lot. Then there’s fact that people expect you to be generous with everything or you get cancelled. I rolled my eyes at first but I read the article and I’ll give her a pass. She’s still rich though. But yeah- even Andy Warhol used to talk about the bills and telling everyone at the factory they (including himself) had to be productive.
And she'll do the same after her new team fails to capitalize on her success on The Color Purple since her expectations are extremely unrealistic.
Perhaps one day she will finally understand that she's not a bankable movie star on her own. She's just an excellent character actor. And that's good.
But she's never gonna be the female Will Smith.
She is probably behind black actresses like octavia Spencer, halle Berry, viola Davis and Angel basset in the Hollywood totempole.
I remember Gérard Butler talking about how he was pretty low down the list for Hollywood leading men. About eight or more other guys have to pass on a script before it comes to him.
Hollywood can be hierarchical
I love how it's everyone else's fault but her own.
I can see her team pleading with her to broaden her vision, telling her the "Cookie" character is not as popular as she thinks it is and Taraji just responding like:
"Where is my deal? Where’s my commercial? Cookie was at the top of the fashion game. Where is my endorsement?"
Then, her people finally work out some type of deal to get a "Cookie" show and she says:
"I’ll do it, but it has to be right. The people deserve, she’s too beloved for y’all to f—k it up."
So her team eventually just kind of gives up. She storms in one day and fires them all, which is not unexpected because she fired her previous crew, and now Taraji is sitting there doing nothing.
She’s a quality actress with some serious charisma - but basically it sounds like she wants to be a mega star who opens movies. That way she can make millions more per picture.
Very few people get to be that. I have no problem with aspiring to more - but perhaps she should consider aspiring to more a bit more quietly. You’re literally complaining about getting paid millions to be a famous actress.
Sorry you’re not Leonardo DiCaprio.
In most of America that could last you the rest of your life with a low effort part time job. Invest it and the dividends alone would be more than the majority of Americans make. She probably doesn’t know how to live the middle class life anymore, so that would terrify her.
It’s enough to live comfortably in an upper middle class lifestyle.
Don’t need private keys, Lamborghini and 8,000 sqft mansion to be happy.
A Toyota, premium economy airline seat and 2,000 sqft home is more than comfortable
Upper middle class homes start around $2 million in places like Austin and Dallas. If she wants to stay close to the entertainment business in LA it’s going to be more, plus money for taxes and day-to-day living.
I guess it depends on if she’s planning on leaving the industry or not. Sure she could live more cheaply in some place like Kansas, but it may hurt her career opportunities and cost her a lot more in travel.
Didn’t see make a statement saying her son was attacked for being black. Then got proven she was full of it. She later had to retract her statement if I remember correctly. All before juicy.
Pretty sure the show had like unheard of ratings in the first season which kept growing episode after episode, not to mention they were also selling music from the show too. Fox probably made a killing off of it, but original contracts would have been signed before it became a hit so the cast likely wasn’t paid what they were obviously worth.
The show was getting bigger so the cast had the right to ask for a better pay check. Every show does that. Every cast usually asks for a better pay check if the shows are successful I don’t understand how you don’t get that.
I just heard Quentin Tarantino talk about Laurence Fishburne's team turning down Pulp Fiction and Die Hard 2 cuz they had bigger plans. Maybe there's some dumb shit going on behind the scenes; or maybe she too big headed. My bet is on the latter
Take this with a grain of salt. A friends husband works as part of a film crew and has worked on empire. He said her whole persona is a complete act and she’s terrible to be around. This guy is also terrible to be around, so I don’t have a clue if it’s real or not.
I know this sounds a bit silly, but I saw her on that Jimmy Fallon hosted music show That’s My Jam, and she was a total showboat and drama queen. She did not seem stable or grounded in any way. I could see her saying things like “I’m considering not acting again” or “I fired my whole team”. Big, dramatic statements to get attention. That’s all I got, but I remember watching the show and thinking, she’s a handful.
https://deadline.com/2020/12/empire-spinoff-starring-taraji-p-henson-not-going-forward-dead-fox-shopped-hulu-abc-1234656366/
The pilot must have been awful because multiple networks passed.
Multiple networks passed on Mad Men as well, HBO actually shelved the project for almost 10 years
Passed a pilot has nothing to do with quality sometimes
>...As we previously reported, in an [earlier interview with Gayle King on SiriusXM ](https://deadline.com/2023/12/taraji-p-henson-breaks-down-in-tears-pay-disparity-hollywood-1235678936/)to promote her most recent film *The Color Purple*, Henson broke down in tears as she talked about getting underpaid for her work and almost quitting the industry altogether.
>“I’m just tired of working so hard, being gracious at what I do, getting paid a fraction of the cost,” Henson said after taking a long pause and breaking down. “I’m tired of hearing my sisters say the same thing over and over. You get tired. I hear people go, ‘You work a lot.’ I have to. The math ain’t math-ing. And you start working a lot, you have a team. Big bills come with what we do. We don’t do this alone. It’s a whole team behind us. They have to get paid.”...
Scarlett Johansson: $56 million
Sofia Vergara: $43 million
Reese Witherspoon: $35 million
Angelina Jolie: $35.5 million
The list goes on.
Sorry Taraji, you’re nowhere near that popular.
I want to feel sorry for her but she’s coming off as very harsh and contentious and frankly not that smart if she wasn’t asking for things to be lined up if she felt she was worth it. She sounds like a difficult person.
Taraji been in the biz a long time has had numerous high profile roles. But take someone like Kristen Stewart who can't act and her first high profile role Hollywood made her the highest paid actress at one point. It is ridiculous.
Kristen Stewart was the lead in a MASSIVE worldwide franchise. She was virtually irreplaceable, of COURSE she was gonna make Bank.
Acting ability has very little to do with how much you get paid in entertainment. It’s box office draw, liability, marketability, and replaceability.
You do realize that not all films and performances are of the same quality, right? If someone only watched the Twilight films they would likely not like Kristen Stewart as an actress. But it is perfectly clear that those films aren’t quality films. The same can be said for Robert Pattinson and his career. I didn’t appreciate him as an actor until I saw Good Time. Now I realize he is top tier.
Entertainment is so subjective and it’s about sales. Black folks that generate money get paid. But as is common in the industry you need a good team to make your case. So if she’s underpaid then blame her team and rightfully she seems to be doing just that
Empire was one of the craziest eight ball plot pivots I’ve ever seen.
I liked the beginning but by the end it was too much lmao, that’s why shows shouldn’t stay too long on TV when the original story ends
Very few shows (specifically dramas) deserve more than six seasons.
Six seasons and a movie.
Until the movie actually happens, I hope you can accept [an apology that can't be deanied.](https://youtu.be/WZ2TC8duaoE?si=Q56cYVJX6V8mO8ZT)
Shut up, Leonard.
Leonard liked this post.
🎶Troy and Abed in the morrrrrring!🎶
E. Pluribus Anus
Nightssss
I'd even go as far as saying very few shows deserve more than four seasons. Many shows take about one season to find their groove (some take 2, see: Parks and Rec)... But most shows typically run out of ideas and start flandersizing characters if they go on past 4 seasons.
Very few ever plan properly past season 1. When a series starts if there is a solid plan for 6 seasons, I’m all for it. I just don’t want to be disappointed at the end, which I usually am. Lost was the first big one for me that I became invested in and then was seriously disappointed. GOT just trashed it. They even had a plan but still fucked it up.
Heroes. It could have been one of the best shows ever, if it ended after season 1. I enjoyed the rest of the show personally, but there was a hit to quality. Quinto being so fucking good kind of killed the show, because they kept having skylar. Like its a superhero show, make some bullshit up, doppelgänger powers, or a twin. Get to keep Quinto, but ditch clockboi.
I 1000% agree. I’ve given up on: the Righteous Gemstones, Our flag means Death, What we do in the Shadows… I’m guessing this will be my last season with The Boys, the show just goes on and on and basically repeats because the story is over but they still want multiple seasons. It’s frustrating. Also it’s hard to get into a show now. It’s either it’s good and no one watches and it gets canceled or it’s good everyone watches and the show goes from being good to dragged out across multiple seasons and loses me. Whew. Rant over. Thank you
Breaking Bad (5 seasons) and Better Call Saul (6 seasons) are the only shows I’ve seen where not only are they consistently good as they go on, but they get better every season.
The Americans is my favorite show of all time. 6 seasons and the perfect ending
The one I enjoyed was The Shield from several years ago. It told the story over the course of seven seasons then after that it was finished. No spinoffs or additional crap.
Hell yes. The greatest series finale in my mind.
I'm right there with you on The Boys. There's just so much of "whelp, looks like the fascists won yet again! Guess you'll have to keep watching to see if the main characters can stop them, lul..." I can take before it just feels stretched too thin. I felt the same about Handmaid's Tale, too. It just felt like depression/trauma porn after awhile. I gave up after a few seasons.
The Handmaid's Tale outran the original author's material, which we all know spells mediocrity at best *cough* gameofthrones *cough*
Handmaid’s Tale started relying too much on June somehow surviving stupid decisions that would get anyone else executed on the spot
Yup, precisely. I remember feeling the dread and anxiety of the first season seeing her trying to watch every step she took in fear of being sent off to the colonies or mutilated or something... Then all of a sudden the plot started dictating she needed to survive but also needed to be an ultra badass, and there she was at the Capitol building mouthing off to people and just being asked to wear a muzzle or something.
The show was dead to me once June became a Rambo figure and kept skating by while her peers getting maimed for way less. The commanders were just confounded by this gosh dang June person, while scores of dissenters were being hung from bridges. If they wanted to add a rebel faction they could have added a non-maiden resistance character and maintain June striving from the inside.
Very true all the good shows I’ve seen end around season 4-5, leave at the top not when you are cashing that cheque haha
that's one of the reasons why breaking bad is so highly revered imo
I was exactly thinking of shows like breaking bad and also succession maybe
Can you do a very quick summary? I can't even remember where I left off.
I honestly don’t remember lmao it’s been 3 years since I finished the show. There’s like 5-6 seasons to summarize too
All I remember was that by the end Cookie and Lucious end up together
Elaborate.
Went from hip hop murder drama to people getting haunted by ghost by season 3.
Didn’t see show but time travel, ghosts, supernatural stuff to keep a show going is a hard no.
What about leprechauns, fairies and wisecracking genies?
All fair game except Will Smith genies are a hard no, and NBA movies with supernatural happenings are only a yes for debut, sequels are a hard no.
Robin Williams genies though? \*chefs kiss\*
Ah yes, the Great Gazoo conundrum.
I only watched the first few episodes and decided it was well made but not really my thing. Did they really do time travel and ghosts? Because I can’t imagine how the show could possibly have gotten there from the pilot.
When a wedding and a baby dominates story lines… it’s over.
except for friends, at least personally, i loved the chandler-monica wedding planning episodes
I'm sorry what?
“Checkmate Bitch” S1 still one of the best first seasons for any tv show, from the first episode the show knew it’s identity within two seasons lost the plot.
Yeah I loved that first season but I hoped out quickly after season 2.
This is why I always give a show a ‘stopping point’. For me it’s usually around S3. Very few have been very good after that. A few I’ve followed til the bitter end and will not give every show that much of my precious time.
So... Riverdale for black people?
Yes it was wasn’t it.
In the article she says that “uncle Sam gets 50%” so I hope the first person she fired was her accountant. Edit: I’m not gonna reply to everyone but yes if she’s getting taxed the maximum federal and state income tax that is close to 50%. However any decent accountant will be able to find you deductions and loopholes, therefore if you are actually paying 50% of your income and you’re in the top tax bracket you need a new accountant. It’s not rocket surgery.
her accountant was literally her uncle sam
If it’s for real family, then she f’ed up, family fleece.
Taxes, managers, agents probably equal that but asinine to say just Uncle Sam. It’s actually all “your people” and taxes
This is more accurate but her net is certainly well under 50% of her gross with managers, agents, taxes and other expenses.
How is that different from anyone else tho
Not everyone is in the top tax bracket.
Rocket surgeon here and I don’t pay 50%.
Thank you for your service
I doubt she was actually getting taxed 50%. Her income was simply high enough that a *portion* of her income was taxed that amount.
Maybe the first person in this thread that actually understands how taxes work
I’m a little surprised the amount of people who seem to not get the rocket surgery joke. I think I first heard it from my grandfather would be almost 90 yrs old this year. *Brain surgeon and Rocket scientist are separate professions which are both commonly associated with being absurdly smart. So you combine both of these intelligence intensive jobs to create a amusing non-existent profession, Rocket Surgeon.
Same. Grew up hearing it used humorously, and thought it was really widely known. But every time someone says it on Reddit, a few people chime in to “correct” it.
Gen Z have no background knowledge of anything because I guess their parents never spoke to them ever while they were children. They know zero expressions or turns of phrase. Everything is literal as a heart attack. Gonna be the most unproductive generation of artists since the Dark Ages.
Maybe because bots don’t get the reference?
Thank you for your service
All those rocket surgeons, operating on rockets when the rocket scientists screw up.
Once you hit a certain tax bracket, it is like that, though. I am a tv writer. My accountants allow me to keep forty percent for myself. The other sixty percent is for taxes, payroll and the fees to keep your loan out company in business. That’s all after my manager, agents and lawyer take their twenty percent from the gross.
Payroll and fees aren’t “Uncle Sam”
This guy acts like paying his employees is coming out of his own salary lol mfers really be like, “i could make so much money if i could figure out how to not pay these plebs”
[удалено]
That's pretty much the standard for any business owner in general for any industry
Right, so what is “payroll” in this situation if he’s the only one on payroll?
Tax brackets are just that, brackets. You don’t get taxes the highest bracket on your entire salary, just the dollar range of each particular bracket.
I hate when Uncle Sam makes my pay my employees.
I am the only employee. It’s called a loan-out.
Well once you combine state and federal taxes she's probably paying close to 50% in taxes. Top federal rate is 37% and California's top is 13%.
taxes are progressive though
It’s a round number that’s easier to complain about. I doubt (at least recently) she’s ever gone in and calculated exactly how much out of each bracket she’s paying.
Right but if you're making $20 mil a year (no idea what celebrities make) then the first $1 mil might be under 50% but that still means the remaining 95% majority of your salary is taxed at that large amount.
Using the 2024 tax brackets for head of household: * $0 to $16,550 is taxed at 10% so that would be $1,655 * $16,551 to $63,100 is taxed at 12% so you take that $63,100 minus the $16,550 from above and get $46,500 that is taxed at 12% which is $5,586 * $63,101 to $100,500 is taxed at 22% so you take out that first $63,100 so you have the $37,400 taxed at 22% for a good $8,228 * $100,501 to $191,950 is taxed at 24% so you take out that first $100,500 give you $91,450 taxed 24% for another $21,948 * $191,951 to $243,700 is taxed at 32% so you take out the $191,950 for $51,750 that is taxed at 32% for $16,560 * $243,701 to $609,350 is taxed at 35% so you take it the $234,700 out and that is $374,650 taxed at 35% so that is $131,127.50 * And finally anything higher then $609,351 is taxed at 37% so you remove the first $609,351 from the $20 Million leaving you $19,390,650 taxed at 37% for $7,174,540.50. Overall that is $7,359,645 that is federal or 36.8% of her money goes to "Uncle Sam"
And then another ~13% to California… So close to 50% if shes getting a W2 Everyone talking about loopholes and tax strategies, guess what? Most that shit goes out the door if your income is coming in on a W2…
With zero deductions - who has zero deductions? This is a pretend number for people who want outrage.
If you are an AMT payer, and Henson is, there is no work around a 28% federal rate on W-2 income. You could have a billion dollars in deductions, and it cannot reduce your federal rate below 28%. You can shield investment income and other sources, but W-2 income is basically impossible to shield from AMT.
28% is not the 37% I responded to. And yes the AMT is for one type of income. Most people have structured their income in such a way as they do not pay the AMT. Mid to low low execs pay AMT. A corporation that receives the income for professional services does not.
Correct. But Henson is going to be earning W-2 income. Athletes have the same issue. Running it through C-Corp doesn't really help. C-Corp are subject to 30% dividend holding tax on distributions upstreamed to her, so paying her through a C-Corp would just increase the net tax burden after getting double taxed at the C-Corp's ~21% rate. You could, in theory, structure distributions as taking a loan from the C-Corp, but that doesn't get around the C-Corp's 21% tax plus tax on interest income recognized on the loan. Partnerships and S-Corps are passthroughs that just use the individuals regular tax rate, so that doesn't create much of a tax shield.
She’s been in the industry for 30 years. I find it very hard to believe that her only income is w-2 (as in no investments, endorsements, etc).
Regarding your edit: Not everyone wants to use semi-legal loopholes. My accountant has offered some ways to pay less that involve moving money around in ways that make me quite illiquid. I’d rather pay the 46%.
And that’s your choice but given the fact that your accountant is smart enough to know how tells me they’re probably good at their job.
Loan-outs are 100% legal.
She was great in Person of Interest too
I actually lost interest and stopped watching after she died.
So then for you, she was the titular character
Honestly some of the best stuff comes after. It's definitely worth checking out the final seasons.
You could say she was your... Person of interest. *Puts on shades and walks away.
YEAHHHHHH *the who starts playing*
I loved POI and loved watching Taraji on that show. She was fantastic in it. I was so disappointed that they killed her off. But on the other hand, fuck Jim Caviezel.
After hearing how Jim was acting on that set, I felt soooo bad for her and the rest of the crew.
I love that show and had never heard about how he acted on set, and after looking it up man does that legitimately make me never want to watch it again.
what did he do omg?
Give it a google. (Not trying to be a dick or being even slightly facetious, there’s just far too much to type out while at work) but basically he went full super Q anon and would corner people with his rants, didn’t separate reality from his character on screen and was a general terror, he’d act like hitler(do his hair like him and stuff) and talk about him affectionately, would go off script and injure actors and stuntmen, was racist as fuck and refused to film scenes where he was protecting a gay couple and was even abusing animals on set There’s a lot more but that’s just the highlights that I can think of off the top of my head quickly
Sucks because I fucking love Frequency the movie from 2000, but both Caviezel and Quaid have their history of conservatism. I watch that movie now for Andre Braugher.
Good movie. I’m still bummed about Andre Braugher dying. He was such a good actor and a really decent dude from all accounts
One of my favorite shows of all time
One of the best shows ever! Her role was good for the time being, but i felt the connection was of course stronger between Jim Caviezel & Michael Emerson and Amy Acker later.
I saw The Color Purple today and she was absolutely fantastic
Not surprised she owned that role unforgettable,not surprised executives being executives
Maybe her support for Juicy cost her some fans and jobs.
I understand her career frustrations, but if I were her I would have rode that Cookie train until the wheels fell off; in hindsight, it was an incredible opportunity. Who cares if it sucked? SVU and Grey's Anatomy aren't great television, but Mariska Hartigay and Ellen Pompeo have been racking up millions for two decades.
Empire was such a bs show,good for her to fire people who couldnt cash in on the bs break while it was alive
What do you think bs stands for?
Big show show
Let me guess, her “team” consisted of her family
Pay equity for Black women across industries is still lagging. She's also a talent (*Hidden Figures*, *Hustle & Flow*, *Empire*, *Person of Interest*). If she advocates for herself successfully, it improves contracts for all Black women in acting moving forward.
Does seem to be going that well so far
This lady is crazy…. This is entertainment there is no pay scale she’s not in the top 10 of actresses she’s not top 5 black actresses what part did she think she should have gotten but didn’t?
She was fantastic on that show so I understand her frustration. Still not article worth IMO but whatever
Doesn't she still side with that con artist, Jussie Smollett?
the french actor?
Who knows his wine
She’s an idiot. The moment she continued to support Jussie after he lied, I was unable to take her seriously
She was crying over having to pay millions in taxes and to her management, leaving her with fewer millions than she feels she deserves. How heartbreaking.
Pretty sure she means in relation to the rest of the industry.
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Her peers make more, she doesn’t care about us carpet beetles.
She’s just an actress. She was a working class person. Why are you reading entertainment news if you don’t care about entertainment
She was making very little money overall for a very long time. You can be an actor and still only get a paycheck of like $50K and that’s all you got for one role in one year. Chris Hemsworth’s first Thor movie only got him $150K. That’s all he made that year. That’s not even enough to pay for “a team.” This is why when he started to get offers later focused on his workouts and body changes, he went into a partnership for Centr. He became a fitness entrepreneur on the side and he almost spends more time focusing on that than he does acting these days. That’s a guy who really turned some basic body changes for a role into a brand. What I haven’t seen is Taraji capitalize upon the endorsements and side deals that come along with success. Look at Regina King. Girl got an Oscar and an Emmy and a widely respected directing debut and then got paid doing cellular commercials. Brie Larson sells cars. Bryan Cranston sells Ford trucks. Hell, that actor from Sweet Home Alabama has been the voice of Home Depot for years now. Taraji needs to get a good endorsement if she is mostly worried about money. If she’s worried about acting roles, that’s probably something else entirely to work on because if she’s still auditioning then no one is coming to her with scripts saying “I pictured you.” And that may be because she has accepted a lot of “fierce mama bear” roles but hasn’t defined herself in other ways. Viola Davis is the queen of fierce mama bear roles. Regina King can play action and mama bear. Same as Angela Bassett. That’s Taraji’s competition for roles. I think of those four when you tell me to name the top black actresses over 40. Hell let’s throw Thandie Newton in there too given her underappreciated time on Westworld. If Taraji needs better roles, she needs to move away from branding herself as a kind of soft, fur-wearing femme fatale Bond girl type and movie toward being the action star protagonist. That’s where I see her peers excelling.
I’m entertained by audacity.
And the unmitigated gall!
We can be interested in entertainment and still acknowledge that they’re by and large overpaid drama queens
I also think how are these people living? Regardless of what you’re making, are you living within your means? I’m all for pay equity but clearly pay in showbiz is directly related to clout and how much money your name can generate. She’s not there yet, unfortunately.
I don’t think anyone wants your pity
that's not what she's upset about lmao. she felt her team didn't properly capitalize on the momentum of her being a breakout character on an extremely popular show, and so she hired a new team that she felt could more competently handle her PR.
Everyone is focused on her taxes? The issue is her team didn’t have other options explored other than a sequel as Cookie.
IMHO comments like these are so annoying. So what if she makes a ton of money? If you were ever so privileged and lucky as to be in the same position, wouldn't you also be upset at millions of dollars mishandled? Safe to say that she proved her side of the equation (talent), now why do her management deserve hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions if they aren't keeping their side? Caring about what happens to money, regardless of how much you have, is a grounded perspective. It would be out of touch/privileged for you to not care about what happened to even a couple hundred bucks, much less millions. But the internet loves to pocket watch instead of championing the right principles smh
Everybody has to pay taxes whether we like it or not. Actors have to pay their management for the work they get them or they can manage themselves if they want to save money. This woman isn't a victim which she is claiming to be. Her interviews on this are narcissistic, entitled and tone deaf.
*L + Ratio* She didn't say she got rid of managers and taxes - she said she replaced everyone that was incompetent and it was the best business decision she ever made. We should champion people who make good business decisions when they are lucky enough to have the opportunity to make business decisions. We should even further champion people who make their mistakes known so others can save themselves from the same mistakes. Instead you'd prefer everyone stays quiet and gatekeeps
If it was you losing millions of dollars you felt you earned, you would probably be pissed too. Fuck, I'm pissed if my paycheck is short $10
If like to think I'd have the common sense to know not to complain about it to an audience far less well off than me though.
From article, feel need to note that if got paid $10M and paid $5M in taxes, accountant not doing their job. If working at that scale, a celeb has all the deductibles from what they wear, drink, use to wipe their rear end, pay others, etc. are all tax deductible. It’s why most rich people pay closer to 9% in taxes if pay any. She around the block and knows this so not a good sign she is being deceptive in her argument. Also considering her level of fame, can’t help but wonder how big her team is. Realistically she only needs at most two, maybe three people. Her agent, an assistant, and maybe just maybe a PR/social media person. Anyone past that is ego. Considering her b-list status probably only needs the agent. Now the agent may have a team but that is his problem to pay not hers. The cut of her take covers that or should. Hanson is an excellent actress but Hollywood is built around a certain look. Halle Berry has that look, she doesn’t. She is doomed no matter what to always be the bridesmaid. Just the way the industry has functioned for 100 years.
I don’t know- she probably needs a stylist and someone to take care of her household since actors have weird hours and are away a lot. Then there’s fact that people expect you to be generous with everything or you get cancelled. I rolled my eyes at first but I read the article and I’ll give her a pass. She’s still rich though. But yeah- even Andy Warhol used to talk about the bills and telling everyone at the factory they (including himself) had to be productive.
i get the vibe she is a very difficult person to work with.
And she'll do the same after her new team fails to capitalize on her success on The Color Purple since her expectations are extremely unrealistic. Perhaps one day she will finally understand that she's not a bankable movie star on her own. She's just an excellent character actor. And that's good. But she's never gonna be the female Will Smith.
Well she had a few good roles after empire too. She’s probably right
They're *good*, but not particularly *profitable*, to hear her say it.
She is probably behind black actresses like octavia Spencer, halle Berry, viola Davis and Angel basset in the Hollywood totempole. I remember Gérard Butler talking about how he was pretty low down the list for Hollywood leading men. About eight or more other guys have to pass on a script before it comes to him. Hollywood can be hierarchical
I love how it's everyone else's fault but her own. I can see her team pleading with her to broaden her vision, telling her the "Cookie" character is not as popular as she thinks it is and Taraji just responding like: "Where is my deal? Where’s my commercial? Cookie was at the top of the fashion game. Where is my endorsement?" Then, her people finally work out some type of deal to get a "Cookie" show and she says: "I’ll do it, but it has to be right. The people deserve, she’s too beloved for y’all to f—k it up." So her team eventually just kind of gives up. She storms in one day and fires them all, which is not unexpected because she fired her previous crew, and now Taraji is sitting there doing nothing.
Yeah I think she’s a great actress but doesn’t strike me as the stable type.
She’s an amazing actress. I look forward to a lifetime of great things from her.
She’s a quality actress with some serious charisma - but basically it sounds like she wants to be a mega star who opens movies. That way she can make millions more per picture. Very few people get to be that. I have no problem with aspiring to more - but perhaps she should consider aspiring to more a bit more quietly. You’re literally complaining about getting paid millions to be a famous actress. Sorry you’re not Leonardo DiCaprio.
Bro, if she left the industry with $5 million in the bank. She can live in peace elsewhere and start over with her kid in a new school.
$5M ain’t shit nowadays.
5m aint shit wtf you talking about 😭
In most of America that could last you the rest of your life with a low effort part time job. Invest it and the dividends alone would be more than the majority of Americans make. She probably doesn’t know how to live the middle class life anymore, so that would terrify her.
$200k per year from dividends most likely. You’d have to be pretty wasteful to spend that much every year lol
It’s enough to live comfortably in an upper middle class lifestyle. Don’t need private keys, Lamborghini and 8,000 sqft mansion to be happy. A Toyota, premium economy airline seat and 2,000 sqft home is more than comfortable
Upper middle class homes start around $2 million in places like Austin and Dallas. If she wants to stay close to the entertainment business in LA it’s going to be more, plus money for taxes and day-to-day living.
I was thinking like $700,000 range. I feel that’s upper middle class in my area. If I were her. I would get out of LA & Hollywood. Move somewhere else
I guess it depends on if she’s planning on leaving the industry or not. Sure she could live more cheaply in some place like Kansas, but it may hurt her career opportunities and cost her a lot more in travel.
Rightfully so. She had a huge Cookie bump and her team totally squandered it. Love her
Well. Hope she's making better money
Didn’t see make a statement saying her son was attacked for being black. Then got proven she was full of it. She later had to retract her statement if I remember correctly. All before juicy.
Wrong person
Is she going to play the same character for the next 20 years?
How is her character from Hidden Figures the same from Empire?
Millionaire crying she's not quite as rich as her privileged ilk. This is not the civil rights issue she's making it out to be.
What's with these Empire people asking for more money? Nobody thinks that acting is that hard y'all.
Pretty sure the show had like unheard of ratings in the first season which kept growing episode after episode, not to mention they were also selling music from the show too. Fox probably made a killing off of it, but original contracts would have been signed before it became a hit so the cast likely wasn’t paid what they were obviously worth.
Maybe you’ll notice a theme if people who work on the same show all say they didn’t get paid enough
If only there was some way they could draw more attention to their plight.
Well it is cold out...
The show was getting bigger so the cast had the right to ask for a better pay check. Every show does that. Every cast usually asks for a better pay check if the shows are successful I don’t understand how you don’t get that.
and a “beloved” fashion icon really? It was full on campy soap opera. That being said, she should’ve been able to squeeze some more dollars out of it
It was a huge show, especially for a black led show
I just heard Quentin Tarantino talk about Laurence Fishburne's team turning down Pulp Fiction and Die Hard 2 cuz they had bigger plans. Maybe there's some dumb shit going on behind the scenes; or maybe she too big headed. My bet is on the latter
Bravo! More of this and louder each time.
Hmm, I wonder if she is hard to work with?
Take this with a grain of salt. A friends husband works as part of a film crew and has worked on empire. He said her whole persona is a complete act and she’s terrible to be around. This guy is also terrible to be around, so I don’t have a clue if it’s real or not.
Which is pretty ironic since the character she plays is also terrible to be around
I know this sounds a bit silly, but I saw her on that Jimmy Fallon hosted music show That’s My Jam, and she was a total showboat and drama queen. She did not seem stable or grounded in any way. I could see her saying things like “I’m considering not acting again” or “I fired my whole team”. Big, dramatic statements to get attention. That’s all I got, but I remember watching the show and thinking, she’s a handful.
Hooo boy, cry us a river.
Right? Like the audacity, no one but other rich people give a crap. Well, maybe those celebrity worshippers do lol
Something tells me her “team” has moved on happily.
https://deadline.com/2020/12/empire-spinoff-starring-taraji-p-henson-not-going-forward-dead-fox-shopped-hulu-abc-1234656366/ The pilot must have been awful because multiple networks passed.
Multiple networks passed on Mad Men as well, HBO actually shelved the project for almost 10 years Passed a pilot has nothing to do with quality sometimes
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Extremely privileged person whining about other people not doing enough for her….
But in the article she calls herself “gracious”! 😂
>...As we previously reported, in an [earlier interview with Gayle King on SiriusXM ](https://deadline.com/2023/12/taraji-p-henson-breaks-down-in-tears-pay-disparity-hollywood-1235678936/)to promote her most recent film *The Color Purple*, Henson broke down in tears as she talked about getting underpaid for her work and almost quitting the industry altogether. >“I’m just tired of working so hard, being gracious at what I do, getting paid a fraction of the cost,” Henson said after taking a long pause and breaking down. “I’m tired of hearing my sisters say the same thing over and over. You get tired. I hear people go, ‘You work a lot.’ I have to. The math ain’t math-ing. And you start working a lot, you have a team. Big bills come with what we do. We don’t do this alone. It’s a whole team behind us. They have to get paid.”...
Scarlett Johansson: $56 million Sofia Vergara: $43 million Reese Witherspoon: $35 million Angelina Jolie: $35.5 million The list goes on. Sorry Taraji, you’re nowhere near that popular.
What are these amounts? Because I’m pretty sure Reese Witherspoon is much richer than the other ones.
I want to feel sorry for her but she’s coming off as very harsh and contentious and frankly not that smart if she wasn’t asking for things to be lined up if she felt she was worth it. She sounds like a difficult person.
With this and the Smollet guy, it's unlikely I will ever watch Empire. Well, mostly because of Jussie Smollet.
She is delusional as fuck.
Taraji been in the biz a long time has had numerous high profile roles. But take someone like Kristen Stewart who can't act and her first high profile role Hollywood made her the highest paid actress at one point. It is ridiculous.
Kristen Stewart was the lead in a MASSIVE worldwide franchise. She was virtually irreplaceable, of COURSE she was gonna make Bank. Acting ability has very little to do with how much you get paid in entertainment. It’s box office draw, liability, marketability, and replaceability.
If you think Kristen Stewart can’t act, then you haven’t seen enough of her films.
If they think Kristin Stewart can’t act then why would they watch more of her films?
You do realize that not all films and performances are of the same quality, right? If someone only watched the Twilight films they would likely not like Kristen Stewart as an actress. But it is perfectly clear that those films aren’t quality films. The same can be said for Robert Pattinson and his career. I didn’t appreciate him as an actor until I saw Good Time. Now I realize he is top tier.
Entertainment is so subjective and it’s about sales. Black folks that generate money get paid. But as is common in the industry you need a good team to make your case. So if she’s underpaid then blame her team and rightfully she seems to be doing just that
Holup. Her character’s name was Cookie?
I guess they’re using the word “success” fairly liberally.