While it might look like it's nothing but glitz and glamor, a ton of unseen work goes
into making television.
For actors, it can lead to even more labor especially if they share a hand in writing,
producing, or directing.
While acting can be a difficult and demanding job, actors are paid massive amounts of money
to make up for it.
Still, even among the wealthiest actors in Hollywood, these television celebrities take
the cake.
Here are tv stars who took home shockingly huge paychecks.
Like all sitcoms, The Big Bang Theory depends on a consistent, likable cast.
It was almost no surprise when the central trio Kaley Cuoco, Johnny Galecki, and Jim
Parsons were able to negotiate a salary bump to $1,000,000 each per episode before season
10.
The surprise is that they actually gave some of it back, as they later took a $100,000
pay cut to help their fellow cast members earn their own sizable bump.
Nice!
When it comes to well-paid sitcom actors, you can't ignore the cast of Friends, who
managed to capture audiences' hearts and NBC Universal's wallet all at once.
While the cast might have gone their separate ways after the show ended, they banded together
for equal paychecks in the final seasons.
"What's more important, your friends or your money?"
"Friends!
"Friends."
It turns out you can have both.
The popularity of the show meant the cast had a massive amount of bargaining power and
the six stars took advantage by entering into a joint negotiation for a cool $1 mil each
per episode for seasons nine and ten.
For the Netflix-produced continuation of Gilmore Girls, Alexis Bledel and Lauren Graham both
managed to score an impressive $750,000 per episode.
That's enough money to buy delivery food for the rest of their lives.
"The whole point of getting everything within delivery distance is so we can judge the quality
of food, speed of service, and cuteness of delivery guys on a scale from 1 to 10.
We cannot work from memory on this."
As Game of Thrones has killed off most of its cast, it's become a lot clearer which
characters are the real protagonists in the show; as you might expect, this revelation
led to some powerful bargaining chips for these actors: Variety reported in 2016 that
Kit Harington, Lena Headey, Peter Dinklage, Emilia Clarke, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau all
managed to grab a cool $500,000 per episode.
"And of course, you have heard the phrase, 'a Lannister always pays his debts."
And it seems like HBO does too.
Doctors tend to be well-paid, but playing a doctor on television is even more lucrative.
Ellen Pompeo of Grey's Anatomy receives $575,000 per episode of the long-running medical drama.
The show is still incredibly successful after over a dozen seasons, but what did Pompeo
do to deserve such a high paycheck?
Pompeo told The Hollywood Reporter:
"The truth is, anybody can be good on a show season one and two.
Can you be good 14 years later?
Now, that's a f-----' skill."
He might be more well-known as a film star, but Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has been making
a pretty tidy sum of money as a television star too.
Johnson stars in the HBO show Ballers, which follows a financial manager negotiating deals
for his slightly-less massive clients.
For his part in the show, Johnson earned a cool $650,000 per episode enough to vault
him onto this list, even without including his movie star paychecks in between episodes.
The Big Little Lies stars are drawing some very big paychecks.
In advance of the award-winning HBO hit's second season, leads Reese Witherspoon and
Nicole Kidman negotiated to earn over $1,000,000 per episode.
That's the benefit of being A-list movie stars appearing in a prestige drama.
Combining a genial personality and a deep roster of celebrity friends, Ellen DeGeneres
has built a full-blown multimedia empire.
In 2017, her estimated annual income reached $50 million, and that was calculated before
the premiere of her new show Game of Games.
At this rate, DeGeneres could probably give out her own money on her game show and still
come out ahead.
What's left to say about Oprah that her massive media empire hasn't said already?
Her syndicated television show made her millions, along with all the numerous sponsorships and
merchandising deals that came from listing her "favorite things."
In fact, she's so successful at media entrepreneurship, it's difficult to find out what she made strictly
from her television series.
We do know that in 2011, which included the final season of The Oprah Winfrey Show, she
took home an estimated $290 million - and that was reportedly a major pay cut from the
previous year.
Her total wealth is worth more than the GDP of some countries, and she's the only billionaire
on this list.
"You get a car!
You get a car!
EVERYBODY GETS A CAR!"
According to the Washington Post, Judge Judy star Judith Sheindlin makes a mind-boggling
$47 million for only 52 days of work, meaning that she makes almost $1 million a day.
Wondering about the secret to her success?
It's apparently an absolutely ruthless negotiating tactic of refusing to negotiate.
Judy told the Hollywood Reporter:
"We sit across the table, and I hand him the envelope and I say, 'Don't read it now, let's
have a nice dinner.
Call me tomorrow.
You want it, fine.
Otherwise, I'll produce it myself.
That's the negotiation."