Asia Kate Dillon says acting work has all but diminished, and they are looking for service work again after spending the last 11 years in theater, film and TV. The actor said on social media on Tuesday that the shift is forcing them back toward the kind of jobs they once worked before acting could support them full time.
Dillon said they got their first job in food service at 15 and worked in food and general customer service until the fall of 2015, when they were finally able to live on acting income alone. That turn mattered because it marked a break from the grind of service shifts to a career built entirely on performance, a career that included 19 episodes of Orange Is the New Black as Brandy Epps and six seasons, 71 episodes of Billions as Taylor Mason.
They also said the change reaches beyond their own finances. In the same note, Dillon described the slowdown as affecting many performer colleagues, especially those who are trans, nonbinary and gender nonconforming, a reminder that the drop in available work is not landing evenly across the industry. Their credits also include John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, The Outside Story, Gen: Lock and the 2025 film Outerlands.
The friction in Dillon’s account is plain: after years of being able to rely on acting income alone, they are once again in the position of needing service work. They have spent 11 years working exclusively in theater, film and TV, but the new message suggests that the pipeline of roles has narrowed enough to erase the stability they had built since the fall of 2015.
What happens next is still open. Dillon did not say whether they had already applied for service jobs or how much acting work has disappeared, only that the search is now underway and that the problem is hitting performers like them with particular force.
