The salaries for some of the biggest names in television have been revealed courtesy of a new report compiled by Variety.
Former Scandal star Kerry Washington is among the highest paid performers on TV this year, bringing in a reported $1.1 million per episode in her upcoming Hulu miniseries Little Fires Everywhere. The eight-episode drama co-stars Reese Witherspoon and will premiere on March 18, 2020. Both actresses have producer titles.
Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, and Don Cheadle are also members of the $1 million club.
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Aniston and Witherspoon were each paid more than $1 million per episode to star in the new Apple TV Plus series The Morning Show.
Cheadle banked $1 million for the Don’t Look Deeper special on Quibi, an upcoming shortform video platform from Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman.
Intense competition from new companies and streaming services is pushing salaries higher, an industry insider explained.
“There definitely has been some dramatic salary inflation, in part as new services try to buy their way into the business,” Showtime Networks entertainment co-president Gary Levine told Variety. “We’re paying more than we have, for sure. And that’s fine. But we have not had to give in completely to the hysteria of the marketplace.”
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson made about $425,000 an episode for his work on HBO’s Ballers.
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Sterling K. Brown, Justin Hartley, Chrissy Metz, Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia each make $250,000 per episode for the NBC drama This Is Us.
There’s big money in reality TV too.
Cardi B and Chance The Rapper were each paid $500,000 an episode for serving as judges on Netflix’s new hip-hop competition series Rhythm & Flow.
