Brain drain threatens film and TV, says actor

Ethan Lawrence is in his “sad boy era”.

The actor, known for roles in After Life, Horrible Histories and Boat Story, recently came close to giving up his profession.

“I can’t keep living like this,” he told his TikTok followers in a video, 18 months into a spell where work had dried up.

Although he’s back on track, the 31-year-old tells the BBC’s Reliable Sauce podcast how that video captured a wider mood in the TV and film world – one he thinks is threatening to erupt.

“If I was to do it again, I’d make sure to talk about the fact it’s not just actors,” he says, thinking back to making the video.

“We’re also talking about every strata of the creative industry, from camera, directors, makeup, hair, costume, all the way down to the more technical aspects like electricity, and all sorts of things like that.”

That’s something Bectu, the union that represents workers in the entertainment industry, says they’re all too aware of.

According to the union, more than half of people in the industry are still out of work since the Hollywood strikes last year which saw workers walk out in a dispute over pay and the use of AI.

Even though that’s been resolved, Bectu says it’s still having a “devastating” impact on the UK’s film and TV production pipeline.

It estimates that only 6% of workers have seen the amount of work they’re getting return to normal and as a result, more than a third think they’ll look for new careers within the next five years.

The union worries these issues will predominantly affect people from minority backgrounds.

“My concern is that when these people go, they’re not coming back,” Ethan says.

He gives an example of a gaffer he’d worked with – whose role it is to manage lighting – who had more than 30 years’ experience.

“He was quitting because he literally couldn’t afford to do it anymore.

“And so we risk a significant brain drain in the creative space, which should be a concern for people.”

For Ethan, the issues facing the entertainment industry is a “comedy of errors”.

“So many things went wrong all at the same time,” he says.

As well as the strikes across the Atlantic, he says he’s still feeling the impact of the Covid pandemic and Brexit, saying there are fewer opportunities for British workers to pick up jobs in Europe.

“If we now want to work on the continent – where you’d get quite a lot of advertising work if you’re a UK citizen – they now have to pay for your visa, which they’re less willing to do,” he explains.

“So they’ll just work with people on the continent, which is fair enough.

“And the problem is that the vast majority of us working in this space are self-employed,” Ethan says, so when work does dry up workers like him simply don’t get paid.

And the actor knows the impact a lack of work can have.

He had his big break in 2012 on the set of Bad Education, where he was cast as Joe and performed alongside Jack Whitehall and Layton Williams.

But fastforward to 2024 and packing his few belongings as he was forced out of his rented home, Ethan was suddenly asking himself what he had to show for 12 years of work.

“I was just on my knees thinking to myself: I don’t own anything… I’ve got no assets. Can I actually really keep doing this?”

It was then that he decided to post the TikTok, which he describes as “a scream into the void”.

Almost 700,000 people watched the video and Ethan says it helped him realise the problems he was experiencing in the industry ran deeper than he first thought.

So it’s important, Ethan says, that people in the industry “know your value”.

“You’re sort of running just to stay in place.”

Looking back, he’s glad he posted and shone a light on what it can be like as a jobbing actor.

From getting head shots and an agent to making time for multiple auditions, “being an actor is expensive – you’re already in the red you haven’t even started yet”.

“The groundswell of support was really helpful for the old confidence,” he says.

“I was expecting people just to go, ‘buck up, buttercup’ but as it happened, I got loads and loads of support, people were very kind, and very sweet.

“And now other people are sharing their stories too.”