'Used and betrayed': Actors say they're still owed thousands after Toronto talent agency abruptly shuts down

The Compass Artist Management office in Toronto. (Google Maps)

When Madeleine Claude first signed with Toronto talent agency Compass Artist Management in Feb. 2021, she was excited about the opportunity.

But less than two years later, the company has ceased to exist and the actor says she is still owed thousands of dollars in wages.

Claude isn’t alone either. She is one of eight former clients of Compass claiming to be owed wages who spoke with CP24.com.

The clients all say that wages which should have been remitted to them after Compass subtracted its commission were never actually conveyed.

Following the company’s decision to cease operations “effective immediately” in October, a number of the individuals who spoke with CP24.com estimated there could be more than $500,000 in wages still unpaid to dozens of former clients.

“I was auditioning a lot and things were looking up. I was working and I was happy,” Claude said of her initial relationship with Compass. “Everything was great and very normal up until November of 2021. That’s when little things started happening.”

Claude said that after being paid properly initially, she started noticing that wages for work she’d done over two months prior still hadn’t arrived. She said that she had to enquire about the missing wages to Compass multiple times before finally receiving them.

Courtesy of Madeleine Claude.

At the time, Claude was doing work in Montreal as well as in Toronto and would sometimes shoot commercials in both English and French. She would then get paid for the French speaking portion through her Montreal agent, and payment for the English speaking portion went to Compass.

“My French payment would go to my Montreal agent, so I would get that way before getting anything from Compass. But it’s the same jobs so I thought that was very weird,” Claude said.

Claude says the delays became longer and more frequent until October of this year when Compass abruptly announced it would cease all operations.

Claude says the agency still owes her more than $3,000.

Toronto police confirmed to CP24.com that they have opened an investigation into Compass after receiving more than 50 complaints, however no arrests have been made and the allegations have not been tested in court.

For his part, the company’s founder said in a statement that Compass “fell behind” but he maintained there was never any intention to take advantage of people.

“There is a difference between a business failing with good intentions and a scheme that sets out to dupe people with the intent to trick or deceive them,” Danny Friedman said.

COMPASS ARTIST MANAGEMENT

Compass was established in the summer of 2020 by co-founders and siblings Robyn and Danny Friedman.

Robyn had been a talent agent in Toronto for more than 30 years, while her brother Danny got his start in the industry about five years ago after being hired by Robyn as an assistant when she worked at another talent agency in Toronto.

Compass eventually became one of the most well known agencies in Toronto. It represented hundreds of film, TV and voice actors, stunt people and other performers.

But in September, Robyn sent out an email to the company’s client base saying she was resigning, effective immediately and that Danny would continue running the agency “as president and owner.”

This took Ralph Small, an actor who had been a client of Robyn’s for almost 30 years, by surprise.

“I’ve been with her for so long, that’s why I followed her wherever she went,” said Small.

“I think that’s what a lot of us did, we love Robyn, she’s really highly regarded in the industry, but by her own admission, she’s not a business person, so it was kind of a shock to me that she wasn’t keeping an eye on what was going on at Compass.”

Small says Compass owes him almost $6,000.

In an emailed statement to CP24.com, Robyn said she was “heartbroken and devastated by what transpired at Compass.”

“After 36 years in the business, working with clients and colleagues who became friends, I never anticipated that this would ever occur. I was never an owner of Compass Artist Management and never had access to any of the finances or the accounting. I was listed as a co-founder on the website because I was the first talent agent to join Compass, and helped to build its client base and was not, and never was, an officer or director of Compass,” the statement read.

“When I started to hear that clients were waiting on payments, I approached Danny and he repeatedly told me payments were imminent. When I continued to hear complaints from clients, I decided I did not want to continue working with an agency that was not paying its talent and made the difficult decision to leave the agency.”

Robyn was Claude’s agent at Compass as well, but Claude says she didn’t discuss finances with Robyn, only with Danny and the agency’s accounting department.

“My communication was always with the accountant and then Danny would step in the conversation eventually. It's as if I understood that for money matters, it’s Danny and accounting,” Claude said. 

Courtesy of Madeleine Claude.

In an emailed statement to CP24.com, Danny said he is “sick to his stomach” and “extremely concerned and heartbroken” over the situation.

“Stories like this usually involve someone trying to trick people out of their money so they can move it to a bank account off shore. This isn’t the story here. I am in the same boat as everyone else,” the statement read.

In his statement, Danny did not specifically comment on allegations that wages were not remitted to clients, however he said the business “fell behind” and that it “struggled like many other small businesses over the past couple of years.”

Acting agencies make their money by finding work for their clients and taking a percentage of their earnings, usually between 10 and 15 per cent.

Paycheques typically are sent from production companies to talent agencies, who take their commission before forwarding the money to their clients.

Numerous former Compass clients told CP24.com that in search of missing or delayed wages, they contacted production companies directly. They claim to have seen statements of payment to Compass for their work but say the money was never passed on to them.

CP24.com has not independently corroborated these statements.

ACTRA, the union representing professional performers in Canada, sent a statement to CTV News about the ongoing allegations surrounding Compass. In it the union said “ACTRA does not endorse or recommend any talent agencies. The contracts between talent agencies and their clients are not collectively bargained.”

Former Compass client Golden Madison is a non-union actor and is thus not represented by ACTRA, so any potential attempts by the union to recover the funds allegedly owed to their members would not apply to her.

“All the non-union people, we kind of have to just, I guess, move on,” Madison said.

She claims Compass owes her almost $15,000.

Small says that as an actor who’s been in the industry for a while, he can absorb the financial hit, but other actors who are younger or just starting out may not be able to.

“I’m sick to death about the younger actors. Some of these people need the money for medication and to feed themselves,” Small said.

“We don’t work that often, but when we do, we’re being paid for our art and our creativity. When we’re being paid to do what we do, it’s the best feeling in the world and that’s the only reason we keep doing it, but of course we’re supplementing our income with so many other jobs.”

Kenton Blythe signed with Compass in March of this year. He says he’s owed more than $2,500.

Blythe says it’s often hard for actors, especially those who are just starting out in the industry, to stand up and speak out when they feel they’re being taken advantage of because of how precarious their work can be.

“We're taught to never stir the pot. As actors we're taught to always say yes. We are so precariously situated and we have absolutely zero agency in our jobs. The only thing as actors we have power over is showing up prepared, on time and being kind. That's it,” said Blythe.

“We have no say in who picks us for a job. We have almost zero say when we get on set because we're at the whim of the director, then they're the ones who get final say. And so when you're situated this precariously, but you really love working, you are terrified to mess that up.”

Actors and other stakeholders in the industry are using this as an opportunity to call for more oversight of talent agents and agencies in the province. Many look to British Columbia, the only province in Canada to require talent agents to be licensed under the Ministry of Labour.

“I'm not sure why, in the capital of the art scene in this country, we don't have any rules. And this is just one crazy thing. Ever since this situation started, I've gotten so many messages about other crazy situations happening at other agencies, not at the magnitude of this, but things that shouldn't happen and wouldn't happen if there was somebody keeping these people accountable,” said Madison.

A GoFundMe page had been set up to support the actors who claim Compass owes them money. So far, $21,818 has been raised.