The Worth: Film Role

“Leo may have an Oscar by Sunday night, but would you pay more than £2 to act alongside him?”

In the midst of the glitz and glamour of awards season, and with the Oscars this Sunday, we asked people how much they would pay to have a short speaking role in a film that went on general cinema release. To avoid people’s well documented problems with guessing what they’d pay, we used the statistical technique of Choice Based Valuation (see here for more details).

In general respondents are not keen on 15 minutes of silver screen fame. The average willingness-to-pay is just £2.13.  This is astoundingly low compared to the £27 people would pay, recently measured using the same technique, to have dinner with the guest of their choice.

There are potentially various reasons for this gap, starting with people not actually wanting to go on screen and extending through to active stage fright.  Conversely, some people presumably feel that the producers ought to be paying them.  After all, James Dean, Jackie Chan and Rene Renee Zellweger started out as extras.

Younger people (x1.7) and men (x2.2) are more likely to pay for the opportunity.  When asked who their ideal co-star would be, as the graphic shows, Leonardo DiCaprio comes in third.  Perhaps this could change if he finally bags an Oscar from his fifth nomination this weekend.

Of the desired co-star mentions 64% were male, and the much discussed #OscarsSoWhite diversity issue is evidenced by 94% Caucasian stars, with just 1% of mentions being non-Caucasian women. And a special shout-out should go to Mr. Blobby for beating the Hollywood elite into the heart of one respondent.