Can an Actor Make It Big Out of Sacramento?

From Leonardo DiCaprio speeding
down Tower Bridge in 2025’s “One Battle After Another” to Kristen
Stewart getting a scoop at Gunther’s Ice Cream in 2024’s
“Sacramento,” the capital city has been a backdrop for a number
of big-name film productions in the past few years. But, as the
latter film points out, Sacramento often feels further from the
glitz and glam of Hollywood than the six hours on I-5 would
suggest.

Is it possible for an actor to
break into that world while living in Sacramento? We spoke to
Sacramento-based actors at all stages of their careers, from
students starting out to professionals with dozens of roles on
their IMDb pages, to get a sense of what it’s like to launch or
land a film or television career in the Capital Region.

The good and the bad
of working out of Sacramento

Sacramento has produced many star
actors, from Betty Inada to Brie Larson, but not many have returned
home after their big break. One exception is Andrew Gray, who
played Troy Burrows, the Red Ranger in “Power Rangers Megaforce.”
Gray grew up in the Sacramento area and says he used acting both
as a way to make use of his athleticism and to deal with issues
at home.

“I grew up in a broken home, so
it was an escape for me,” Gray says. “I think that’s also what
Power Rangers was. It was something where there was athletics,
there was teamwork, there was heroism. It was an escape, and it’s
something that I felt was really noble.”

Andrew Gray, who played Troy Burrows in Super Megaforce Red
Ranger, at Power Morphicon 2014. (Photo by Dennis A. Amith,
J!-ENT, licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0)

Gray’s career took him all over
the world before he returned to Sacramento in 2021. In that time,
he says he’s made an effort to get to know the acting community
here a bit more.

“I’ve gone to a couple of mixers
here where I’m meeting people that are creators, creatives that
are drone operators, DPs, producers, directors, writers,
photographers, those kinds of things.” Gray says. “They’re
hungry, and that’s good.”

Jeffrey Weissman, who played George McFly in “Back to the
Future II” and “Back to the Future III,” echoes this sentiment.
After decades playing dozens of roles in Hollywood productions,
he moved from the Bay Area to the Sierra Nevada foothills during
the tail end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The beauty of the community up
here is that, once again, there’s a lot of people who want to be
a part of your film project for their own need to make art and
storytelling,” Weissman says. “It’s not viewed, as I would feel
in Los Angeles, like it’s a competition when you go on an
audition and everyone’s eyeing each other.”

Weissman, who has worked as an
acting coach and teacher for over 30 years, says that in his
experience, the Sacramento acting community has overall been
“fantastic.” He is working to create connections with local
filmmakers here in addition to those he already has from the Bay
Area.

Gavin Alton-James Bailey took part in the J Street Film Festival
hosted by the Sacramento State University film program at Crest
Theater. (Courtesy photo)

One of the biggest factors for
many actors choosing to stay in the area is the difference in
cost of living compared to a major film hub like Los
Angeles. Gavin Alton-James
Bailey, of Shingle
Springs, a 20-year-old acting student at Studio 24 in Folsom,
noted that this lower cost allowed him to pursue acting while
still being able to pay bills.

“The cost of living is definitely
one thing that I am taking advantage of right now, and that this
is a good place for artists who don’t necessarily make a livable
salary on acting,” Bailey says. “It allows them to survive while
creating and training and taking risks, and they can do so while
having a roof over their head.”

Bailey also says he felt the
acting community in Sacramento was another major positive, noting
it felt far less competitive than in Los Angeles.

While many actors based in
Sacramento say they love living in the area, they also concede
that there aren’t necessarily as many opportunities within the
borders of the Capital Region as there are further south, with
many finding a bulk of their work in the Bay Area or making the
much longer trip to L.A. or out of California altogether.

Francois Battiste, who’s starred in a variety of theater
productions and guest-starred in a four-episode arc of “Law &
Order: Organized Crime,” made his way to Sacramento in 2014,
having spent the previous 12 years in New York. Battiste says
that while the Sacramento area is great for raising a family, the
majority of his work is outside of it.

“I laid tracks down in New York
City and worked elsewhere. It allows me to continue to work both
in New York, on Broadway, off-Broadway, in L.A., and various
places in between,” Battiste says. “To be completely honest with
you, when I’m in Sacramento, I generally am just a dad.”

Battiste says he had been living
in the area for almost nine years before he first became involved
with the local theater scene. He believes there is a lot of
opportunity for growth in the region.

“I’m often asked by a lot of my
friends that live elsewhere, ‘What’s it like living in
Sacramento?’” Battiste says. “I love it for raising a family, but
in terms of artistic endeavor, there doesn’t seem to be as many
opportunities.”

Ups and downs of guild
membership

Something else that can
significantly affect the opportunities for an actor in the area
is whether they have SAG-AFTRA membership. The Screen Actors
Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists is the
labor union for film and television actors in the United States.
Bailey of Studio 24, who recently became SAG-eligible through his
work in the film “Dream,” notes that there are some obvious benefits
to joining the union.

Bunny Stewart sits in the upper area of the Sacramento Natural
Foods Co-op off R Street. Stewart initially became involved with
the local film scene as a makeup artist before starting to take
onscreen roles as well. (Photo by Jacob Peterson)

“They limit the time you can be
on set, and they make sure you get a lunch break like any normal
job would have,” Bailey says. “They make sure you get fed and
there’s water and there’s food on set, as well as they regulate
your salary.”

In spite of these benefits,
including much better pay, Bailey has yet to apply for full
membership due to the simple fact that SAG-AFTRA actors are
generally blocked from working on non-union projects, something
he says would severely limit his ability to work in the
area.

“It’s so much harder to get union
projects than non-union projects, that with someone with a
limited resume you can almost become stuck,” Bailey says. “You’re
seen as inexperienced, but you can’t gain experience outside of
the larger projects because you’re blocked from the smaller
projects now.”

Bunny Stewart, a local actress and makeup artist who
cohosts the YouTube channel “SacTown Movie
Buffs,” cites this
loss of access to non-union work as the main reason she herself
has not pursued SAG membership, saying she is far more interested
in the artistic element of filmmaking than money.

“I’ve seen it where a lot of my
friends who are SAG, they have to sit on the sidelines while I’m
doing all of these really great independent films for, like, a
lot less money,” Stewart says. When I moved out here from
Chicago, I got advice from another professional actor to not go
SAG.”

John Demakas, a Sacramento-based actor who joined the
union in 2017, notes that there has been a slight decline in
SAG-eligible roles in Northern California in recent years.

John Demakas says that actors needed to do the work to find the
different opportunities out there for them, noting that in
addition to film and television he has done work for radio,
audiobook narration and theater. (Image courtesy of John Demakas)

“It
really has gone down in terms of the amount of projects that come
up here, and COVID sure didn’t help,” Demakas says. “Even before
I got into SAG, I was on projects that were coming up from
Hollywood to San Francisco, but those projects have started to
wane a bit.”

However, Demakas says there have
been more non-union projects available, not just in NorCal but in
Los Angeles as well.

Both union and non-union actors
were quick to point out that the benefits of union membership are
still worth considering, with Stewart specifically saying that
union sets often had better safety standards.

Gray, the Red Ranger, has been a
SAG-AFTRA member for decades and says he initially moved away
from the Sacramento area because of a lack of union work. He says
SAG-AFTRA membership provided a lot of its own
opportunities.

“When you’re in the union, you’re
loyal to the union, and they give you benefits, they give you
perks with that,” Gray says. “If it’s screening opportunities, if
it’s meeting writers, directors and casting events, if it’s
auditioning for union projects, if it’s using their healthcare,
et cetera.”

Weissman of “Back to the Future”
also says that while the choice between union and non-union work
can present an obstacle for actors in the area, in his
experience, some directors will go through the process of making
a project union-eligible.

“I’d say 85 percent of those
projects that come to me, they do jump through the hoop,”
Weissman says. “I’m very fortunate that I have some credibility
with some of my major credits that help attract some
financing.”

What’s on the marquee
next in Sacramento?

There’s been a lot of buzz about
filming in Sacramento after “One Battle After Another” and
“Sacramento” shot scenes here — and, of course, 2017’s “Lady
Bird” — but whether these projects translate into more
opportunities for the area is something that remains to be
seen.

Demakas says there have been
efforts by SAG to reach out to local creators to educate them in
an attempt to create more union-eligible productions. He says
California as a whole has a lot to offer for film and television,
and Sacramento is no exception.

“I tell people all the time, if
you want Northern California to get out of L.A., that’s great,
come to Sacramento,” Demakas says. “Because Sacramento has far
more assets than people think.”

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Can an Actor Make It Big Out of Sacramento?

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