Brenda Song says she was ‘underpaid and overworked’ as a Disney Channel star

Key Points

• Brenda Song claims that she was “underpaid and overworked” during her years at Disney Channel.

• “But Disney did give us a platform to be sitting here right now. So it’s very hard to complain about certain things,” she admitted.

• She and Suite Life costar Dylan Sprouse reflected on filming the children’s series during a recent episode of his Wildmen podcast.

Brenda Song knows she put the hours in as a Suite Life star.

The former Disney Channel star is looking back on her years on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and The Suite Life on Deck, which aired from 2005 to 2008 and 2008 to 2011, respectively. Among the aspects Song reflected on was the discrepancy between the hours she worked and what she was compensated.

“I’ve been curious to ask you about this. Like, I feel like there are parts of the Suite Life that are, like, black holes for me. Like, I don’t remember years of my life,” Song told fellow Suite Life alum Dylan Sprouse and his cohost, Brendan Columbus, on their Wildmen podcast.

Columbus said that Suite Life star Phill Lewis made a similar point when he stopped by the podcast for the Nov. 3 episode. “Phill said he forgot directing episodes. It was like, he’s like, ‘They’re just gone.’ He’ll watch them again. Just have no recollection.”

The actors then spoke about the residuals they claim to have never received for their time on the shows. “I look at that time and I was like, we paid them,” Song said. “I always say this about my time at Disney, is like, I know everybody has their own journey [because]… I always say, like, I have a boring tale… I had a lovely time.”

She continued, “I think the only thing that was hard about that time was I feel like we were underpaid and overworked. But Disney did give us a platform to be sitting here right now. So it’s very hard to complain about certain things.”

Entertainment Weekly contacted reps for Disney and did not receive an immediate response.

Song’s comments come after Sprouse claimed that he only received one residual check from his Disney Channel tenure. “We were extremely popular, but also extremely underfunded,” he said.

“And I don’t ever think I’ve said this, like, out on an interview, but the only residual check I’ve ever received for The Suite Life at all was a crossover episode with Hannah Montana for five cents. I’m not joking.”

Sprouse and Lewis estimated that they shot about 190 episodes throughout Suite Life’s run, which included episodes Lewis claimed the cast wasn’t paid for.

The actor claimed that Suite Life would film “wraparound episodes,” where, in addition to scenes for the episode of the week, they’d shoot extra footage for a future episode later in the season.

“Then the next week they go, ‘You’re gonna shoot this scene from the same episode.’ And what they were doing was they were compiling an episode by shooting a scene a week,” and eventually put them all together, Lewis alleged.

As for whether the actors would get paid additionally for the wraparound episode footage, Lewis claimed it didn’t count “for residuals.”

“We didn’t get paid for [that episode],” he alleged.

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Lewis also claimed that he was initially offered a low salary for Suite Life. After auditioning for the part of Mr. Moseby and doing a chemistry read for the show, he declined the role and said he would only appear in the Disney Channel Original Movie Stuck in the Suburbs as planned.

Though he didn’t consider himself an “expensive” actor, he had a few roles on his resumé including Heathers, City Slickers, and I Spy.

“And so they kept coming back, and they kept sweetening the deal.”

Following her time on Disney Channel, Song has appeared in movies The Last Showgirl The Social Network, and television series Running Point, Dollface, and Dads.

The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and The Suite Life on Deck are available to stream on Disney+.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly