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\n \u201cI\u2019ve received less than $1,500 for Josie and the Pussycats. My last payment for it was in 2009.\u201d
\n Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Universal, Daniel DeSlover\/ZUMA Press Wire\/Shutterstock\n <\/p>\n
Cinephiles, fans of alternative rock, or Ben Wyatt<\/a> could tell you that Kay Hanley, the front woman of the popular \u201990s band Letters to Cleo, provided the vocals of Josie McCoy in Josie and the Pussycats. The pop satire, released in 2001 to middling reception, has since enjoyed an afterlife as a Technicolor cult classic, with lead actresses Rachael Leigh Cook, Rosario Dawson, and Tara Reid still embracing<\/a> the film all these years later. Hanley, though, is currently in a residual battle to be fairly compensated for her work.<\/p>\n The singer-songwriter admits<\/a> that it took 25 years to understand the scale of the errors that occurred during production to screw her over in the long term, and she\u2019s prepared for the upward battle she faces to prove her contributions \u2014 she has been paid for only one day of labor when her work amassed to nearly a full month. Hanley will also be losing her SAG-AFTRA health insurance on July 1 because she didn\u2019t make enough earnings for the calendar year; her insurance rate of $725 a quarter will go up to about $2,100 a month, and she\u2019ll have to kick her son off her plan. (It\u2019s a scenario that many indie musicians<\/a> find themselves in.) \u201cIt\u2019s really hard,\u201d she tells me. \u201cThe union is really good about this stuff, but in this case, it\u2019s going to be difficult for me to resolve this, hopefully without legal action.\u201d Here, she tells her story.<\/p>\n Babyface was the producer of the songs in the film. He had chosen a singer to play Josie who was an incredible vocalist from Atlanta. She was a Black rock singer who had a big, insane voice. But when they tested her voice coming out of Rachael Leigh Cook\u2019s mouth, it was like, Oh, that doesn\u2019t make any sense. I had flown in from Boston to do the voices of the Pussycats \u2014 I was working on the background arrangements and already there when they identified the need for a new singer. I wasn\u2019t able to just swoop in to get the job, though. There was some drama that culminated in me getting the job eventually.<\/p>\n I had never been hired for \u201cmy vocals\u201d before. I was the singer in Letters to Cleo and wrote all of our lyrics and melodies. I wasn\u2019t a voice-over person or actor. When I got the Josie job, I was approaching it as being the lead singer of a band. I would go into the studio every day and we would try out different things. There was no film footage yet, because it hadn\u2019t started shooting. Rachael was going to sing along to me rather than me mimicking anything she was doing. I had no idea that what I was doing was a job called \u201cvoice-over artist,\u201d because I didn\u2019t know it was a job. My only experience was with my band or films using my music as needle drops. I didn\u2019t know there was any difference. My manager and attorney weren\u2019t thinking about it, either.<\/p>\n Listen, this was very novel. We just weren\u2019t thinking about SAG contracts. I was supposed to be getting day sheets that were reported to the union, and I was supposed to be compensated with a daily union scale. None of that was a conversation. I don\u2019t think Babyface knew he was supposed to be doing that, either. But I had an absolute blast. It was life-changing on about a dozen different levels. I didn\u2019t feel like I had a whole lot of agency in a rock band and what my financial future was going to be or what my career trajectory could be like. After that experience, inspired by Babyface, I went behind the scenes in the industry and was someone who wrote songs for animation and directed other voice-overs.<\/p>\n Now, here\u2019s a helpful comparison to another one of my bigger projects. 10 Things I Hate About You, right out of the gate, was being shown on cable television after its theatrical run. The residuals started coming for me immediately. Josie and the Pussycats didn\u2019t have that. It was never on television or anything like that. It was a slow, cult film. They didn\u2019t even make a Blu-ray for it. It wasn\u2019t easy to find for a long time. 10 Things was hugely popular at Blockbuster. It was always a smash on the secondary run, and the streaming era brought a whole new revenue stream to it. Over that film\u2019s lifespan \u2014 which, I should note, I\u2019m also briefly onscreen for<\/a> \u2014 I\u2019ve made about $50,000 in residuals. I\u2019ve received less than $1,500 for Josie and the Pussycats. My last payment for it was in 2009.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n I\u2019ve never run into a situation like this, where Universal Pictures seems to have overpaid residuals to the principal actors in the first few years of release. I\u2019ve never heard of such a thing before. According to SAG, there\u2019s no way of saying when Universal and the production company will recoup that overpayment. But I wasn\u2019t a part of that overpayment. I wasn\u2019t overpaid. I was reported as being on set for one day, which is the same as any other extra actor. That characterization doesn\u2019t fit my role in the film. Now that it\u2019s been discovered, I expect I\u2019ll be able to remedy the situation. I\u2019ve always been able to resolve stuff like this on my own.<\/p>\n But what SAG wants from me now is pay stubs and documentation of time in the studio, which I don\u2019t have. So I\u2019m talking to our attorney to see if they have any correspondence or documentation left over for Josie. But none of that is going to help my case, anyway, because it doesn\u2019t support that I was on set or recording at Babyface\u2019s studios. I probably had paper airline tickets. There\u2019s no way I can document that any of this happened, except: Watch the fucking movie, duh. That\u2019s my voice coming out of Rachael Leigh Cook\u2019s mouth. I don\u2019t know what better proof I could offer than that.<\/p>\n Ultimately, you have to know if your voice is going to be on film. What are your rights there? If your voice is being broadcast anywhere, your fee pays for that first use. Any recurring use after, the production gets paid, and you get paid for that. But my simple advice for anyone in this industry is to make sure you\u2019re filling out your SAG paperwork. The voice-over studio should be presenting you with your paperwork every day if you\u2019re doing voice-over. I know how all of this works, and I still wasn\u2019t making the connection between what I was doing over decades of work and what I did on Josie and the Pussycats. It took me 25 years to realize me not getting paid residuals was messed up. And it\u2019s because I really didn\u2019t understand the job I did back then. If I can miss these things, I can\u2019t imagine how widespread it is.<\/p>\n I\u2019m familiar with my rights. And yet I\u2019m fighting every day to make sure all of my songs are registered correctly and I\u2019m getting paid for them. Learn from me.<\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n