Orange Is The New Black’s Kimiko Glenn Sounds Alarm On Alleged Pay Discrepancy Between Actors On The Netflix Series

Kimiko Glenn (Peni Parker in the Spider-Verse franchise) took to TikTok over the weekend to underline comments she made in a recent New Yorker underlining the alleged pay discrepancy between actors on Orange is the New Black and the lack of residuals on future streams. The Writers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild are under work stoppage orders due to unsuccessful negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers concerning streaming compensation, AI, and other current concerns.

“People were bartenders still. People had their second jobs still,” Glenn, who played Brook Soso, said in the self-published video. “They were f****** famous as shit, like internationally famous, couldn’t go outside, but had to keep their second jobs because they couldn’t afford to not. We couldn’t afford cabs to set… I deserve to get paid for as many f****** streams as that shit gets.”

The New Yorker article also makes reference to a previous social media post made by Glenn in which she scans her phone’s camera across a SAG-AFTRA royalty statement for $27.30. OTINB ran on Netflix from 2013 to 2019, and the income statement shows how for appearing in multiple episodes, Glenn now receives two to four cents per episode.

Elsewhere in the article, other cast members speak of how they also are disillusioned with their compensation during the original run and in the years since. As streaming has disrupted the traditional income from residuals, many are concerned about how the regime change is endangering the livelihood of working actors.

“We all took a risk together,” Alysia Reiner, who played the warden Natalie Figueroa, said. “And the reward for Netflix does not seem in line with the reward for all of us who took that risk. I can go anywhere in the world and I’m recognized, and I’m so deeply grateful for that recognition. Many people say they’ve watched the series multiple times, and they quote me my lines. But was I paid in a commensurate way? I don’t think so.”