Hollywood has produced plenty of big-budget blockbusters, but not every project results in a big payday for its cast
On the contrary, many of the industry’s most well-known actors have actually taken pay cuts to ensure that their TV shows and movies get made. Others have done so for the sake of their costars
The core cast of The Big Bang Theory, for example, took a pay cut in 2017 so that Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch could get a raise. The cast of Blue Bloods, meanwhile, took a 25% cut across the board to keep the show alive. Despite their best efforts, however, the police procedural came to an end in 2024 after 14 seasons
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“Nobody wanted to leave. Everybody was gonna stay on,” Tom Selleck, who played Frank Reagan in the series, said duringa July 2026 taping of Ted Danson‘s Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast. “That’s hard to get. It may be some kind of record to have the same cast intact for that length of time.”
Here, see the stars who took pay cuts for TV shows and movies like Friends and The Wolf of Wall Street
Tom Selleck and the cast of Blue Bloods
In 2023, Blue Bloods was renewed for a 14th and final season after Selleck and the rest of the cast took a 25% pay cut Selleck mentioned the pay cut himself duringan appearance on Danson’s Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast
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“The real truth to that is in the last year of [Blue Bloods], at our last family dinner, everybody wanted to come back,” the actor said. “We’d already taken a 25% cut in salary.”
02 of 07
Jack Black
Jack Black reduced his acting fee by millions of dollars in order to make Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny with Kyle Gass back in 2006. According to The New York Times, Black’s fee per movie at the time was $12 million; instead of charging his full rate, he took a $1 million upfront fee, which he split evenly with Gass
“Who cares how much money I make?” Black told the publication at the time. “What’s important is we got a movie about the D made, and we got to make it the way we wanted.”
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03 of 07
Chadwick Boseman
Chadwick Boseman went to “astounding” lengths to ensure that his costar Sienna Miller was paid fairly for the duo’s 2019 thriller, 21 Bridges. Miller detailed his efforts in an interview with Empire just one month after Boseman died at the age of 43 in August 2020
“This was a pretty big budget film, and I know that everybody understands about the pay disparity in Hollywood, but I asked for a number that the studio wouldn’t get to,” Miller recalled. “Chadwick ended up donating some of his salary to get me to the number that I had asked for. He said that that was what I deserved to be paid.”
04 of 07
Kristen Stewart
Walter Salles’ 2012 adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s iconic novel, On The Road, almost didn’t happen when the 2008 financial crisis hit. The movie’s budget decreased from $35 million to the mid-$20 millions, and Kristen Stewart, who played Marylou in the film, accepted a salary that was a fraction of what she made from the Twilightfranchise
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“There is something scary and unpredictable and animalistic about Marylou,” Stewart told The Hollywood Reporter of her interest in the role
According to the publication, she made “one-hundredth” of her $20 million salary for Breaking Dawn — Part 2., a.k.a. $200,000
05 of 07
Kaley Cuoco, Jim Parsons, Johnny Galecki, Simon Helberg and Kunal Nayyar
Kaley Cuoco, Jim Parsons and Johnny Galecki made headlines in 2014 when they began earning $1 million per episode for their roles inThe Big Bang Theory,perDeadline.Two years later, Simon Helberg and Kunal Nayyar followed suit
By 2017, however, Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch were still only making $200,000 per episode. During contract renegotiations for seasons 11 and 12, the original five opted to take a pay cut so that their costars could get a raise. Variety reported that Cuoco, Parsons, Galecki, Helberg and Nayyar each gave up $100,000 in order to free up a total of $500,000 for Bialik and Raunch’s salaries.
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06 of 07
Jonah Hill
Jonah Hill was paid $60,000 to play Donnie Azoff in The Wolf on Wall Street “because he wanted the role so bad.”
“They gave me the lowest amount of money possible,” Hill said, per ABC News. “I said, ‘I will sign the paper tonight. Fax me the papers tonight. I want to sign them tonight before they change their mind.’ “
07 of 07
Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer
Though the cast of Friends reportedly started out making the same $22,500 fee per episode, Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer soon began making more when Rachel and Ross’ relationship became a focal point of the show
Things changed after season 2, however, when the group entered contract negotiations as a group rather than as individuals. According to The Guardian, Aniston and Schwimmer’s salaries subsequently went down in order to match the rest of the cast’s
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From then on, the cast was paid the same per episode. They earned reportedly $75,000 per episode in season 3, all the way up to $1 million by seasons 9 and 10
Read the original article on People
