Terrence Howard in ‘Empire.’
Chuck Hodes / ©Fox / Courtesy Everett Assortment
Terrence Howard is suing CAA for an alleged battle of curiosity within the company’s dealings over his compensation on Empire.
Within the lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Courtroom on Friday, Howard alleges his brokers who packaged the take care of Fox prioritized the pursuits of themselves and the present’s producers, which it additionally represented, by inducing him to take below-market salaries over his six-season run starring within the sequence. CAA declined to remark.
“I trusted CAA to take care of me, they usually taken care of themselves,” Howard mentioned.
James Bryant, a lawyer representing Howard, takes situation with packaging charges, during which brokers are paid immediately by a studio for attaching actors or a director to a author’s pitch. “Over the past a number of years, businesses have turn into way more highly effective and located a way more profitable approach of earning profits,” he mentioned. “It’s by being the packaging agent, the place you characterize actors, producers, manufacturing firms and your personal monetary curiosity. That’s the place that fiduciary responsibility begins to interrupt down. That’s why we’re right here right this moment.”
Along with Howard, CAA represented sequence co-creators Lee Daniels and Danny Robust, in addition to manufacturing firm Think about Leisure.
In line with Bryant, the go well with alleges that Howard was offered deceptive data over salaries of equally located actors. When he requested what others at his degree of fame had been being compensated, his brokers allegedly gave him defective comparisons when he ought to’ve been getting paid on the extent of Kevin Spacey in Home of Playing cards or Jon Hamm in Mad Males.
The grievance states, “Not solely did it turn into abundantly clear that his brokers led him on a path to depend on data that was deceptive, he found that this was the results of the truth that CAA was not performing in his finest curiosity, however within the in curiosity of their very own monetary profit in addition to the curiosity of the Manufacturing Corporations and the producers, Daniels and Robust. Underneath regular circumstances, had CAA not been the packaging agent, and had CAA not been concurrently representing the Manufacturing Corporations, the place their sole monetary curiosity would have been the ten% payment from the compensation acquired by Howard, they’d have most definitely fought for Howard in a fashion that the majority producers are accustomed to seeing CAA brokers have interaction in.”
Requested about his pay, Howard mentioned his deal afforded him $325,000 per episode “on the top of what I used to be being paid” in season six. He added, “I used to be by no means given a producer credit score despite the fact that I rewrote many of the scenes and acted within the capability of producer.”
The go well with additionally claims that there was a racial part to the company’s alleged refusal to barter in the very best curiosity of Howard, who says he was underpaid by as a lot as 50 p.c in comparison with high actors in hit sequence.
“Discovery will present that this was racism,” mentioned Carlos Moore, a lawyer representing the actor. “You received’t discover in discovery {that a} white actor — Oscar-nominated, Golden Globe-nominated — was handled like that.”
Bryant harassed, “CAA merely informed Howard, ‘We’re not going to take the ten p.c company payment this time as a result of we packaged issues collectively.’ In actuality, it was a horrible factor as a result of they’d no incentive to combat for this man when he demanded to have his wage negotiated comparable to each different lead white actor on the market.”
Howard brings claims for breach of fiduciary responsibility, amongst others for fraud. He’s represented by James Bryant and Brian Dunn of The Cochran Agency, in addition to solo legal professional Carlos Moore. They urged different actors who imagine they had been equally misrepresented by CAA to return ahead to them.
This isn’t the primary go well with that Howard has filed over his compensation on Empire, one of the crucial watched exhibits on the community throughout its run. In 2020, he sued twentieth Century Studios over allegedly unpaid royalty charges to be used of his title and likeness on merchandise. The grievance claimed breach of contract and demanded an accounting.
He additionally performed the function of defendant in one other go well with from his former expertise administration agency accusing him of breaching an oral contract by failing to pay post-termination commissions. Genuine Expertise and Literary Administration claimed that they had been entitled to 10 p.c of all gross income he acquired from employment in Hollywood throughout the time they represented him. Notably, this included Empire.
