Roughly two dozen working PAs spoke to THR for a new report titled “The Deadest Dead-End Job in Hollywood?.” They don’t paint a rosy picture of the demanding job that once served as a reliable entry point towards a longer, more fruitful career. Some of the surveyed PAs had managed to climb up the ladder in prior years, only to climb back down when money got tight. Others have been stuck in the role for three, five, or seven years, as they continually lose gigs to nepo babies (what the industry calls “political hires”) or find themselves shut out of more senior departments overrun with higher-ups who’ve taken a pay cut themselves. “Camera work’s hard to find right now, too,” said Sean Maydoney, a PA of six years. “Across the board, you have people who are very overqualified who are taking work that they maybe haven’t done for several years.” “It is an ecosystem,” added L.A.-based PA Jon Hook. “We do need to move up.”
Others in the industry are advising aspiring creatives to avoid the role altogether. “You graduate college right now, and your best option is to go work at a talent agency getting on a desk, because while work is slow all around, stuff is still getting made. It’s just not made in America,” said one source. “There’s a lot of us thinking, ‘Should we go back to school and just try a completely different profession and give up on film?’ Because some of us would feel a little bit hopeless,” another added.
Still, some PAs are just happy to have a job at all. “It did feel like I was getting stuck,” said Antonio Solorzano, an assistant location manager on the second season of Euphoria who recently returned to PA work. “But over the past couple of weeks, my perspective has been changing because it’s like every day that I’m here, I’m still working. That’s a victory in and of itself.”
You can read the report in full at The Hollywood Reporter.
