LOS ANGELES — When Lauren McKnight, 27, isn’t appearing on television shows for VH1 and ABC, she’s driving a black Scion xA, picking up Hollywood executives on their way to the airport.

When Carlton Totten, 23, isn’t studying old Marlon Brando films, attempting to summon up brooding intensity, he’s in a gray Prius taking trust-fund babies from El Rodeo School in Beverly Hills to the nearest branch of the Los Angeles Public Library.

And when Clairfoster Josiah Browne, 36, takes a break from his Abstract Expressionist-inspired artwork, he scans his iPhone for fares inside a 2012 Chevy Cruze.

This is Hollywood’s new creative underclass, where being a driver for hire has replaced waiting on tables as the preferred side job for the city’s underemployed actors and artists. Over the last two years, droves of them have gone to work for ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft because of their flexible hours and, until recently, decent pay.