Actors throughout history have been considered lower class, even often associated with prostitutes. This is true not only in the West, but also in the East.

For example, the Empress Theodora was an actress and prostitute before marrying Justinian, and her history was used against her by political enemies.

In Japan, the Kabuki performers were also often available as prostitutes to patrons.

Given the association between prostitutes and actors it would make sense that actors were looked down upon by more cultured society.

This was my response in a question that was asked a while back here about the general perspective of actors over time. The key aspect is the last bit in the answer. (I can find sources if you need. Roman Theatre was a component of my Ph.D. exams, but I don't have all the sources at hand with me here.)

"It's a complex issue and one that changes over time both during the Republic and during the Empire (so please forgive the generalizations here). Some Roman actors were slaves brought back from conquests and bought by theatrical producers/entrepreneurs because they had some kind of talent that could be used. Obviously, there is going to be a status difference here. For other actors, there was little distinction made between the performers in the different theatrical entertainments. For instance theatre as a formal and literary endeavor had a relatively short timespan in Rome as it was supplanted relatively quickly by pantomime as a higher artform and mime as a more popular and vulgar artform. The mime performers were vagabonds who would travel from location to location producing short comedic pieces that were guaranteed to get laughs - which typically means ridiculing local officials and making poop and penis jokes. The Mimes come under heavy fire as Christianity starts to gain traction as the Christians had been favorite targets of the Mimes (Think Mel Brooks' "Stand Up Philosopher" bit in History of the World Part I: "These Christians are so poor! They only have one God!") Eventually the words for mimes (mimus, I think) and for actors (histrones) become conflated and all actors suffer from the same reputation as the mimes. One of the things that makes mime or any popular performance a problem for status in the Roman world was the idea that if you were paid for your services it was a bad thing. You could give it a way, and then you could accept tribute or gifts for your art, but if you charged, it was the equivalent of prostitution."