Except..taxes. Depending on where they're based state/fed will take around 50% of their gross pay with annual income like that. Their agent or manager likely also takes a healthy %. Still plenty enough to retire forever but nowhere near 120M or 100M.
They probably get paid as independent contractors into a PC, and are able to write off a good chunk of income since they are actors. they still probably get around 80 mil, depending on how good their tax accountant is.
That's federal. Modern Family was filmed in LA. The tax rate is about 17%. Let's say the effective rate is 45%. An agent takes about 10% and a manager another 10%. Assuming you could negotiate these down, you're still at 60%.
Not in California, which is where these actors basically have to live to accommodate the shooting schedule. At upper income levels, between state and federal you’re looking at over 50% if your salary is that high (California’s highest income level is around 13%).
The only way to make tons of money in CA is via capital gains and/or legal accounting trickery, which is really only available to owners of massive businesses (using depreciation, spreading losses over multiple years, etc). It’s a safe bet that these actors were paying out close to half their income in taxes.
agents are 10% of each paycheck and managers are about the same. but yeah, season 1-3 they were probably like 40k per episode or something. they start pretty low and then once something takes off they renegotiate
It’s incredibly stupid that the government gets half their pay right off the top. Then they pay their union, agents, etc. At best, they are receiving about 38% of the income they earned.
But without those things they wouldn’t make as much as they do and their opportunities would be limited. Unions make sure lesser known actors get livable wages so they don’t lose everything between long breaks between roles and agents are the people that get them auditions. Both incredibly necessary.
> It’s incredibly stupid that the government gets half their pay right off the top.
It's a good thing that's not how taxes work then, isn't it?
Brackets only run their rate on the money inside that bracket. If the 1 million plus bracket is at 50%, that means dollar 1 million and 1 gets hit at 50%. Anything under the one million mark is the bracket below that.
And each member typically gets 5-10ish% of what they make (a stylist and assistant might get a flat fee but managers, agents, publicists and maybe lawyers usually get a percentage). So while they make good money, they pay out others based on that money.
Non-snarky answer: They need to pay fees and salaries: to their managers, their guilds, their taxes, the people that make sure everything is working for them (cleaning, maintenance, managing, cooking, training, etc).
They still get a good paycheck, tho.
Hypothetical numbers, 500k minus 30% for their crew minus 35% for taxes = 175k per episode * 22 episodes = 3,850,000/year. Pretty damn good, if you can do that for a few years and keep control of lifestyle creep most anyone would be set to never work again from any age and have a lavish lifestyle most of us couldn't dream of.
Then you can get into residuals depending on their contract and hooooh boy nobody would ever see my face again if it meant "working".
The 5 main characters of the Big Bang Theory got paid $1 mil/episode & Johnny Galecki hasn't been in anything since 2019. With that much money, I would've retired.
Dude RDJ got paid like 50 million for each avengers movie.
I think total from his marvel movies was something like 300M+
They are super talented, but thinking about it makes me lose my mind...
It was a huge gamble. Nobody thought Iron Man was going to be what it was nor that the MCU would do what it did. He could have faded into obscurity like many other comic book movie stars over the years. He basically played a version of the lottery by taking a percentage of the back end and then was able to negotiate high for every future movie after the MCU required Iron Man to function.
He was more so making around $20M but got the box office residuals which made it closer to $75M from the 1st avengers movie until Endgame where he made $75M upfront then another $50M from the box office. The amount of money he made from those is astounding.
SOMEONE BIT HIM AND THEN HE GOT SHOT IN THE FACE?!
Also, it's kind of weird having watched that movie recently to find out it was made by Zach Snyder, and James Gunn. (And Romero, obviously, but that isn't weird. That's normal.)
I've run into him a couple times at two of his different places. He's super nice!
If you're ever in SLC, go to Cotton Bottom and get the garlic burger. It's amazing. Cotton Bottom has been around forever, but Ty bought it and made it even better....before Ty they didn't have fries with their burgers, just potato chips. He added the ability to fry and it's amazing.
It’s been a few years ago and they did renovations for I think a year plus. It was the most glorious news for the apres ski crowd (at least those that I know) that he was bringing fries to the place…it was the only drawback.
I knew about all the renos and whatnot, just didn't know he was the reason! Haven't been in ages anyway, I should probably change that (especially now that they have fries lol).
Mormons are Christian but I would say they are waaaaay more extreme than most Christians. Also, most people in general are hypocrites, not just Christians.
One of my favourite things is actors who hit it big and then stick to smaller roles that they enjoy/find interesting rather than following more big roles.
It's just neat.
Daniel Radcliffe’s smaller projects have been fantastic too. Weird Al was perfect and Miracle Workers is hilarious. I’m always excited when I see a new project from him.
its super weird and definitely worth a watch. Not everyone's cup of tea but I think most people at least appreciate that the performances from the leads are incredible.
Jason Alexander basically finished up Seinfeld and immediately went back to stage acting. Had a few one-off episodes in other shows, but he couldn’t be bothered to do something he didn’t enjoy anymore.
Yeah he’s been in some great indie movies like The Skeleton Twins. Modern Family allowed him to probably just pick and choose movies he’s passionate about.
Julie Bowen was really good in an episode of curb, ty Burrell is the guy I want to play Norman Osborn/Green goblin because I think it’d be interesting.
The one where they nearly have a car accident and Phil decides to take control, he threatens Gill. There’s other examples where Phil gets pissed off and he can be a bit intimidating when he wants to be which I wish he got to show off a bit more.
I was thinking he's more Reed Richards. Reed is notoriously hard to play without being too dry/boring. Needs a bit of wit and charm to pull it off. Ty could do it. Colbert too, as he did a great job in a parody part in the show Venture Bros, as Mr. Impossible.
I hear Pedro Pascal may be Reed next. I hope the writing makes the character less serious and dour. I don't know why writers are so afraid to write a Reed Richards who's fun/captivating to watch on screen. It's like they all got the impression Reed should be "a rubber man you wouldn't want to hang out with."
> I don't know why writers are so afraid to write a Reed Richards who's fun/captivating to watch on screen.
They probably didn't want to risk making a parallel character to Tony Stark. They have a good bit in common and he needs to stand on his own as a completely different character in the movies. I'd imagine it's easier to do on print.
Julie was in Happy Gilmore and practically disappeared after that until Modern Family. I'm sure she was in a bunch of stuff but my point is that her disappearing isn't all that crazy.
Usually an actor or actress “disappearing” just means they’re working steadily on stuff the speaker isn’t into.
Like people say Katie Sackoff “disappeared” for a while after BSG…she was a lead for four seasons in a show during that time. It just wasn’t sci-fi, the venn diagram of Longmire fans and BSG fans barely touches.
She was also a victim in an episode of Law& Order SVU.
I wanted to confirm that (my memory is awful) so I looked at her IMDB and she’s been in way more shows than I knew!
I noticed during the Godfather parody scene that he does have a face that is perfect for a villainous role. He goes from goofy and likeable to genuinely intimidating effortlessly.
Jenna Fisher wrote about this. Even as a well known and successful actor its a graft to get roles still. I wouldn't blame anyone for living comfortably after finding success.
She auditioned for a show with Matt LeBlanc, who played Joey on Friends. she didn’t get the role because people would not be able to get over “Joey and Pam” being a couple
Julie and Ty might hear similar things
Apparently the $500k was negotiated per episode for the last two seasons. Season 10 was 22 episodes & 11 was 18. So that’s 20 mil just for the last two seasons. If I made that much in roughly 2 years I would definitely disappear so well that people would forget I ever existed.
Is syndication really a thing anymore? I would assume any money comes from streaming at this point and I have no clue about the payout actors get from that.
That's definitely on the upper scale, but not nearly the most ever. The group on Friends was making a million each per episode for the last few seasons. Charlie Sheen was making over a million for Two and a Half Men for a few years.
A lead part on a successful sitcom used to be one of the best jobs in Hollywood. Very difficult to have sustainable success now.
oh i’m aware. i just didn’t think they were making near that much for this show so i was like so shocked. now i need god to make me every cast member on friends and two and a half men.
I mean, you obviously can, but it goes less far than you perhaps think.
They have to pay an agent, likely a manager and then perhaps a publicist and a lawyer, accountant, and PR. You gotta pay tax, too. When you do TV, it's a lot harder to do more TV or films to supplement stuff.
That $65k an episode ($1.5m a year) probably only amounts to $500k a year which is hugely livable and makes them very privileged but its not as much as perhaps people think.
Yeah it’s always hard to make the argument that almost 5x my salary would be a rough living…
…but yeah when your industry soft-requires living in LA, projecting success, and when you can go years without real income-generating work it’s not as much as you’d think. It’s a good living. They’re not poor. But yeah not as much as you think.
And we’re talking about two major prime time starts, basically toward the top of the Hollywood pyramid. Went to a Felicia Day panel this year and since she couldn’t actually talk about many of her projects (strike and all) she just talked about a bunch of personal shit and how tough it can be to make it in that business. Including the money side. My partner was wondering how much money Day had made, so looked up her “reported” net worth (which is surely nonsense but probably order-of-magnitude accurate).
Partner realized that she is likely worth more than Felicia Day. Couldn’t understand how, because “she’s famous.” But, like, what has she *starred* in? Not much.
(And of course she’s like “medium famous” at best, but still recognizable to a lot of people.)
After all of the taxes, agent fees, etc., they were probably only making about $600k a year. While that definitely isn’t chump change, living in LA and having to maintain a certain image isn’t cheap either. Yeah, they were living comfortably, but not as much as $65k/episode would lead you to believe.
The sad thing is now celebrities make more and more money and want more and more money.
I think there's nothing more pathetic than seeing an actor like the rock or Kevin Hart Hawking a liquor,a bank or a stupid gambling app.
It's like "Yeah I'm disgustingly rich but I'm willing to make a little bit more money selling something that ruins people's lives."
Isn't that usually happens with sitcom actors? I feel only Jennifer Anniston or Steve carell or quite handful have made it to more than their shows.. many amazing actors from the TV are MIA for a long time considering their popularity and fan base..
I am big fan of ty and several such actors who were wonderful on TV but I don't see them in any of the other projects post their sitcom end.
Big sitcoms. The casts of Friends and Seinfeld were making 1 million+ per episode back in the 90s. They're basically set for life, and most people can't help but see them as their famous sitcom role, so they don't get cast after their big role ends. It's not just sitcom actors either, any big role early on can kinda ruin someone's career. I mean it took Robert Pattinson a decade to not be seen as "the sparkly vampire" anymore.
I think it happens more than it used to because quality TV series are catching up to movies in the streaming era. But the overall sentiment does hold.
Kaley Cuoco and Jim Parsons have both honestly done quite well after Big Bang Theory for example. Bryan Cranston went on to bigger things after Malcolm in the Middle too.
Some take breaks or even borderline retire after a long stint on a TV show because the hours can be crazy- for some, 6-7 days a week at 14-18 hours a day. The actor who played House was horrified by the working schedule for american tv actors.
Ed O'Neill likely got a lot of money from Season 1 too and is 78. He was already a legend from Married With Children so imagine how much he made from this show.
And I think Sofia Vergara made the most money from Modern Family itself plus got some movies from it so imagine her salary lol
Gotta grind out a handful of seasons before you make any decent money. And then imagine each time you say you’re going to walk away they throw another few million at you!
$500k is a ton for an episode. Then your manager takes 25%, your agent takes 10%, (off the gross) and then you get taxed like 50%.
Again it’s a shit ton of money, but a lot of it goes away. (Still more than the average person makes in a year though)
Nobody ever talks about the managers riding around in a Bentley 🤷🏻♂️
If could make enough money to retire with tens of millions of dollars in the bank at a pretty young age, I'd stop working as soon as possible. I really don't understand how people think you need to work as long as possible to have any meaning in life. An almost endless supply of money to do whatever I want is all I need to be happy, and the sooner I can stop working the better.
Ty Burrell (Phil Dunphy) gave the (virtual) commencement address for the University of Oregon a few years ago during covid and he nailed it. Not getting a real graduation sucked for the students, but at least they got his fantastic commencement address.
Some writers do this they find relatively unknown actors with talent give them great roles and when that project is successful they just stop acting or only do small projects
Aaron paul for example it also happens with alot of videogame guys
DAMMNNN $125,000,000 over 11 years + income from other acting jobs is crazy….
obviously there’s taxes to pay and insurance and whatever other variables that require your money in adult life, but other than that you can go live in a cave and make it a mansion.. like damn
Phil has appeared as a voice actor in a number of things! A kids show my toddler was watching, I did a double take when Phil Dunphys voice came through
Also, it's really hard to find new, exciting projects when you played the same character for 10 years and became associated with it. It's quite rare to achieve the opposite, actually.
Ty Burrell pretty much just does voiceover work now and he left Hollywood and moved far away.
Julie Bowen is always shilling some stuff on Instagram, but I think she owns or partly owns whatever the company is.
Ty Burrell did an amazing joke as the dad, Jack, in Duncanville. That showed was hilarious and was really hitting its stride when it was cancelled after 3 seasons.
Julia Louise-Dreyfus doing Veep decades after the end of Seinfeld was brilliant. Not only was Veep one of the most well written comedies of the era (one of my all time favorites along w/ Seinfeld), enough time had passed that most viewers wouldn't immediately think of Selina as another "Elaine"
No karma farming
Sometimes I forget how truly massive some actors pay is. It’s wild. They were doing like 22 episodes a season
That's like $11M a season
121 million in 11 years
They weren’t getting that much season 1
Ok, let's round it down (a lot) to a minuscule 100 million lol
Small profit of a 100 mill
Except..taxes. Depending on where they're based state/fed will take around 50% of their gross pay with annual income like that. Their agent or manager likely also takes a healthy %. Still plenty enough to retire forever but nowhere near 120M or 100M.
They probably get paid as independent contractors into a PC, and are able to write off a good chunk of income since they are actors. they still probably get around 80 mil, depending on how good their tax accountant is.
Taxes are 33-35% not 50%. Agent, managers are like 2-3 % each and guild/union roughly the same. So they’re still taking more than 50% pay.
That's federal. Modern Family was filmed in LA. The tax rate is about 17%. Let's say the effective rate is 45%. An agent takes about 10% and a manager another 10%. Assuming you could negotiate these down, you're still at 60%.
Not in California, which is where these actors basically have to live to accommodate the shooting schedule. At upper income levels, between state and federal you’re looking at over 50% if your salary is that high (California’s highest income level is around 13%). The only way to make tons of money in CA is via capital gains and/or legal accounting trickery, which is really only available to owners of massive businesses (using depreciation, spreading losses over multiple years, etc). It’s a safe bet that these actors were paying out close to half their income in taxes.
onos how will anyone ever live off just $50M those poor poor souls
agents are 10% of each paycheck and managers are about the same. but yeah, season 1-3 they were probably like 40k per episode or something. they start pretty low and then once something takes off they renegotiate
Good taxes r good tax the fuck out of them pls
It’s incredibly stupid that the government gets half their pay right off the top. Then they pay their union, agents, etc. At best, they are receiving about 38% of the income they earned.
Oh no, how can they survive with 38 million dollars?
But without those things they wouldn’t make as much as they do and their opportunities would be limited. Unions make sure lesser known actors get livable wages so they don’t lose everything between long breaks between roles and agents are the people that get them auditions. Both incredibly necessary.
> It’s incredibly stupid that the government gets half their pay right off the top. It's a good thing that's not how taxes work then, isn't it? Brackets only run their rate on the money inside that bracket. If the 1 million plus bracket is at 50%, that means dollar 1 million and 1 gets hit at 50%. Anything under the one million mark is the bracket below that.
they're probably utilizing a PC to flow through the cash so that they aren't paying taxes on a good amount of it
Except they were paid roughly 30-60k an episode in Season 1.
Which at the time was most peoples yearly salary.
True but if you count syndication and reruns, they are probably getting paid more now for season 1 then they did when they were making it
ott platforms etc etc , the friends cast made a shit ton more money since it went to Netflix
Taxes
It's more like 2-3 after taxes and payment to your team
What do you mean by their team?
Manager, publicist, agent, stylists and assistants are your "team".
And each member typically gets 5-10ish% of what they make (a stylist and assistant might get a flat fee but managers, agents, publicists and maybe lawyers usually get a percentage). So while they make good money, they pay out others based on that money.
Do you think they (actors) just are by themselves and that’s it?
Thanks for answering the question
Non-snarky answer: They need to pay fees and salaries: to their managers, their guilds, their taxes, the people that make sure everything is working for them (cleaning, maintenance, managing, cooking, training, etc). They still get a good paycheck, tho.
Hypothetical numbers, 500k minus 30% for their crew minus 35% for taxes = 175k per episode * 22 episodes = 3,850,000/year. Pretty damn good, if you can do that for a few years and keep control of lifestyle creep most anyone would be set to never work again from any age and have a lavish lifestyle most of us couldn't dream of. Then you can get into residuals depending on their contract and hooooh boy nobody would ever see my face again if it meant "working".
Doesn’t seem outrageous when you consider movie actor salaries.
The 5 main characters of the Big Bang Theory got paid $1 mil/episode & Johnny Galecki hasn't been in anything since 2019. With that much money, I would've retired.
Oh yeah and the residual checks too, I’d never work another day in my life.
Dude RDJ got paid like 50 million for each avengers movie. I think total from his marvel movies was something like 300M+ They are super talented, but thinking about it makes me lose my mind...
It was a huge gamble. Nobody thought Iron Man was going to be what it was nor that the MCU would do what it did. He could have faded into obscurity like many other comic book movie stars over the years. He basically played a version of the lottery by taking a percentage of the back end and then was able to negotiate high for every future movie after the MCU required Iron Man to function.
He was more so making around $20M but got the box office residuals which made it closer to $75M from the 1st avengers movie until Endgame where he made $75M upfront then another $50M from the box office. The amount of money he made from those is astounding.
Like that lady from greys anatomy. She didn't at first but she was making millions per seasons for multiple seasons.
Most actors are getting $500 per episode if they are just background characters. So real boom or bust
IIRC Ty Buurrell owns a few restaurants and mostly does smaller projects now. He's probably much happier to be focusing on his own family life.
He does! He lives in Salt Lake City Utah and has a few restaurants and bars. I’ve heard if you go to his bars you might run into him :)!
Question is: is he the same as in the show in real life
No he’s like his character in dawn of the dead
This is actually awesome to me.
SOMEONE BIT HIM AND THEN HE GOT SHOT IN THE FACE?! Also, it's kind of weird having watched that movie recently to find out it was made by Zach Snyder, and James Gunn. (And Romero, obviously, but that isn't weird. That's normal.)
He's genuinely the nicest guy.
I've run into him a couple times at two of his different places. He's super nice! If you're ever in SLC, go to Cotton Bottom and get the garlic burger. It's amazing. Cotton Bottom has been around forever, but Ty bought it and made it even better....before Ty they didn't have fries with their burgers, just potato chips. He added the ability to fry and it's amazing.
How did I not know he took over Cotton Bottom?
It’s been a few years ago and they did renovations for I think a year plus. It was the most glorious news for the apres ski crowd (at least those that I know) that he was bringing fries to the place…it was the only drawback.
I knew about all the renos and whatnot, just didn't know he was the reason! Haven't been in ages anyway, I should probably change that (especially now that they have fries lol).
Bars in Utah?
They exist, but don’t try and order a double.
Mmm time to visit Utah 🤣
Wait, is he a Mormon?
...he owns bars.
Dang you right! That was a brain fart moment.
Would only be a brain fart if christians were never hypocrites.
Mormons are Christian but I would say they are waaaaay more extreme than most Christians. Also, most people in general are hypocrites, not just Christians.
Mormons are to Christians as helicopters are to airplanes.
And Lisa Barlow owns a tequila company but that doesn’t stop her from calling herself a Mormon
That doesn’t stop some people business is business. Brigham young sold alcohol too
I don’t think so, that would be interesting if he was.
One of my favourite things is actors who hit it big and then stick to smaller roles that they enjoy/find interesting rather than following more big roles. It's just neat.
A friend of mine has affectionately called that the “Daniel Radcliffe Effect” lol
Daniel Radcliffe’s smaller projects have been fantastic too. Weird Al was perfect and Miracle Workers is hilarious. I’m always excited when I see a new project from him.
I adore Swiss Army Man. Dude played a farting corpse and made it moving.
Oh wow, I haven’t seen that one. Adding it to the list, thanks!
its super weird and definitely worth a watch. Not everyone's cup of tea but I think most people at least appreciate that the performances from the leads are incredible.
Seeing Daniel Radcliffe grow up on screen in the HP movies, to him saying the hard R(in a movie) is wild.
Jason Alexander basically finished up Seinfeld and immediately went back to stage acting. Had a few one-off episodes in other shows, but he couldn’t be bothered to do something he didn’t enjoy anymore.
Yeah he’s been in some great indie movies like The Skeleton Twins. Modern Family allowed him to probably just pick and choose movies he’s passionate about.
Julie Bowen was really good in an episode of curb, ty Burrell is the guy I want to play Norman Osborn/Green goblin because I think it’d be interesting.
God. That'd be awesome. And since he's been on Hulk he should be on marvel's radar by now
Im trying to remember the episode but there was a couple where he was actually quite ominous in a subtle way that made me think of norman.
Stuff like The Godfather one
The one where they nearly have a car accident and Phil decides to take control, he threatens Gill. There’s other examples where Phil gets pissed off and he can be a bit intimidating when he wants to be which I wish he got to show off a bit more.
I was thinking he's more Reed Richards. Reed is notoriously hard to play without being too dry/boring. Needs a bit of wit and charm to pull it off. Ty could do it. Colbert too, as he did a great job in a parody part in the show Venture Bros, as Mr. Impossible. I hear Pedro Pascal may be Reed next. I hope the writing makes the character less serious and dour. I don't know why writers are so afraid to write a Reed Richards who's fun/captivating to watch on screen. It's like they all got the impression Reed should be "a rubber man you wouldn't want to hang out with."
Pedro Pascal has been confirmed as the next Reed
Just so you know, it’s not a maybe on Pedro, it’s 100% confirmed and unless smth happens it’s probs gonna stick like that.
> I don't know why writers are so afraid to write a Reed Richards who's fun/captivating to watch on screen. They probably didn't want to risk making a parallel character to Tony Stark. They have a good bit in common and he needs to stand on his own as a completely different character in the movies. I'd imagine it's easier to do on print.
Julie was in Happy Gilmore and practically disappeared after that until Modern Family. I'm sure she was in a bunch of stuff but my point is that her disappearing isn't all that crazy.
She was in Boston Legal too, wasn't she? At least for a season.
She was in Ed for four seasons as well. Admittedly not a huge hit, but still a solid 82 episode run.
Usually an actor or actress “disappearing” just means they’re working steadily on stuff the speaker isn’t into. Like people say Katie Sackoff “disappeared” for a while after BSG…she was a lead for four seasons in a show during that time. It just wasn’t sci-fi, the venn diagram of Longmire fans and BSG fans barely touches.
She was also a victim in an episode of Law& Order SVU. I wanted to confirm that (my memory is awful) so I looked at her IMDB and she’s been in way more shows than I knew!
She was just in Totally Killer as the mom, she didn't have a ton of scenes or anything but it was good to see her in something again!
I noticed during the Godfather parody scene that he does have a face that is perfect for a villainous role. He goes from goofy and likeable to genuinely intimidating effortlessly.
Jenna Fisher wrote about this. Even as a well known and successful actor its a graft to get roles still. I wouldn't blame anyone for living comfortably after finding success.
She auditioned for a show with Matt LeBlanc, who played Joey on Friends. she didn’t get the role because people would not be able to get over “Joey and Pam” being a couple Julie and Ty might hear similar things
You're probably right, overfamiliarity eith a particular role is gonna be a struggle to overcome too.
That was actually for the role of Phil and Claire
Pam’s first show was the office. Both of these actors were veterans by the time they started modern family.
Still their most well known roles, and by a long way
Apparently the $500k was negotiated per episode for the last two seasons. Season 10 was 22 episodes & 11 was 18. So that’s 20 mil just for the last two seasons. If I made that much in roughly 2 years I would definitely disappear so well that people would forget I ever existed.
Each of the Friends cast makes $20 mil per year from syndication alone. I imagine they might be making at least half of that. Which is still a lot!
Is syndication really a thing anymore? I would assume any money comes from streaming at this point and I have no clue about the payout actors get from that.
Streaming royalties are minuscule compared to syndication in its heyday. That’s a big part of what the strike last year was about.
they got paid… $500k…. per episode? god please let me wake up one day as julie bowen or ty burrell i dont care which one i’ll be just Please dear God-
That's definitely on the upper scale, but not nearly the most ever. The group on Friends was making a million each per episode for the last few seasons. Charlie Sheen was making over a million for Two and a Half Men for a few years. A lead part on a successful sitcom used to be one of the best jobs in Hollywood. Very difficult to have sustainable success now.
NBC proposed $5m per episode to Seinfeld for season 10 and he rejected it and this was in 1998.
Don't forget the deal Sheen got to do Anger Management after that, it too was over $1 million an episode
oh i’m aware. i just didn’t think they were making near that much for this show so i was like so shocked. now i need god to make me every cast member on friends and two and a half men.
Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon earn 2m per episode, for the ongoing 'The Morning Show.'
Started out at 65k an episode, it wasn’t until the final season they got to 500k.
Only 65k an episode? Jeez how did they even live on that
I mean, you obviously can, but it goes less far than you perhaps think. They have to pay an agent, likely a manager and then perhaps a publicist and a lawyer, accountant, and PR. You gotta pay tax, too. When you do TV, it's a lot harder to do more TV or films to supplement stuff. That $65k an episode ($1.5m a year) probably only amounts to $500k a year which is hugely livable and makes them very privileged but its not as much as perhaps people think.
Yeah it’s always hard to make the argument that almost 5x my salary would be a rough living… …but yeah when your industry soft-requires living in LA, projecting success, and when you can go years without real income-generating work it’s not as much as you’d think. It’s a good living. They’re not poor. But yeah not as much as you think. And we’re talking about two major prime time starts, basically toward the top of the Hollywood pyramid. Went to a Felicia Day panel this year and since she couldn’t actually talk about many of her projects (strike and all) she just talked about a bunch of personal shit and how tough it can be to make it in that business. Including the money side. My partner was wondering how much money Day had made, so looked up her “reported” net worth (which is surely nonsense but probably order-of-magnitude accurate). Partner realized that she is likely worth more than Felicia Day. Couldn’t understand how, because “she’s famous.” But, like, what has she *starred* in? Not much. (And of course she’s like “medium famous” at best, but still recognizable to a lot of people.)
They must have been in the poor house in the early seasons.
After all of the taxes, agent fees, etc., they were probably only making about $600k a year. While that definitely isn’t chump change, living in LA and having to maintain a certain image isn’t cheap either. Yeah, they were living comfortably, but not as much as $65k/episode would lead you to believe.
The sad thing is now celebrities make more and more money and want more and more money. I think there's nothing more pathetic than seeing an actor like the rock or Kevin Hart Hawking a liquor,a bank or a stupid gambling app. It's like "Yeah I'm disgustingly rich but I'm willing to make a little bit more money selling something that ruins people's lives."
Dude the cast in the big bang theory got 1 million per episode on the final season...
Isn't that usually happens with sitcom actors? I feel only Jennifer Anniston or Steve carell or quite handful have made it to more than their shows.. many amazing actors from the TV are MIA for a long time considering their popularity and fan base.. I am big fan of ty and several such actors who were wonderful on TV but I don't see them in any of the other projects post their sitcom end.
Big sitcoms. The casts of Friends and Seinfeld were making 1 million+ per episode back in the 90s. They're basically set for life, and most people can't help but see them as their famous sitcom role, so they don't get cast after their big role ends. It's not just sitcom actors either, any big role early on can kinda ruin someone's career. I mean it took Robert Pattinson a decade to not be seen as "the sparkly vampire" anymore.
I think it happens more than it used to because quality TV series are catching up to movies in the streaming era. But the overall sentiment does hold. Kaley Cuoco and Jim Parsons have both honestly done quite well after Big Bang Theory for example. Bryan Cranston went on to bigger things after Malcolm in the Middle too.
Some take breaks or even borderline retire after a long stint on a TV show because the hours can be crazy- for some, 6-7 days a week at 14-18 hours a day. The actor who played House was horrified by the working schedule for american tv actors.
But they don't film shows for an entire year right.. 1 season might have 20~25 episodes.so may be 3 or 4 months max.
Ed O'Neill likely got a lot of money from Season 1 too and is 78. He was already a legend from Married With Children so imagine how much he made from this show. And I think Sofia Vergara made the most money from Modern Family itself plus got some movies from it so imagine her salary lol
I'd do 10 episodes max then disappear lol that's more than enough for me
When you're paid as much as they do, the show must go on
They're paid per episode but with contracts for the whole season, and I bet those contracts have really heavy cancellation fines.
Also I'm pretty sure they would be under contract
This....is not how the business works The acting community is not like "working at Applebees"
Yeah I get that. I'm joking and at the same time dreaming lol
Gotta grind out a handful of seasons before you make any decent money. And then imagine each time you say you’re going to walk away they throw another few million at you!
Same was with the guy who played Leonard in TBBT. I don’t even think he acts anymore.
Imho I think he was the least likeable character on the show.
lol for me he was the most normal one.
ty burell would be a great joker.
$500k is a ton for an episode. Then your manager takes 25%, your agent takes 10%, (off the gross) and then you get taxed like 50%. Again it’s a shit ton of money, but a lot of it goes away. (Still more than the average person makes in a year though) Nobody ever talks about the managers riding around in a Bentley 🤷🏻♂️
Ty Burrell played a French detective in Muppets: Most Wanted. That’s a major role, guys.
Phil does a lot of voice acting right?
A LOT
I’d literally never work again. I’m under 50 and I know exactly how much I need to retire at 55. Literally no way to do it but a boy can dream!
This is what any normal person would do after getting that much money.
Blow it in 5 years on coke and hookers
That much soda and diabetes would kill ya in 3
Julie bowen was in the fallout movie though!
Sofia had to be paid the highest right?
My guess would be that the main adult actors likely all got paid the same. Just a guess though.
Ed O’Neill was paid higher than the other adult cast members the whole run. The rest were paid the same.
That doesn’t surprise me
Yeah, he was definitely the biggest name.
And Ty Burrell has gone on to be a pretty successful restaurateur in Utah. https://www.utahbusiness.com/ty-burrell-founders-series/
If could make enough money to retire with tens of millions of dollars in the bank at a pretty young age, I'd stop working as soon as possible. I really don't understand how people think you need to work as long as possible to have any meaning in life. An almost endless supply of money to do whatever I want is all I need to be happy, and the sooner I can stop working the better.
Excuse you, Julie Bowen was in Hubie Halloween.
And Totally Killer where the character just seemed like Halloween Clair on max lol
22ep a season and 500k per ep with 12 season is crazy money you'll never see me work again lol
for real? 500k per episode?
[Exact same wording.. OP is so lame](https://www.reddit.com/r/Modern_Family/comments/13x83mg/i_know_theyve_both_been_in_things_since_but_this/)
Nah man phil has to come back. He is the hero.
When life gets tough, sometimes I fantasize about what life is like for a MF cast member.
But they have both been in projects since then?
Ty Burrell (Phil Dunphy) gave the (virtual) commencement address for the University of Oregon a few years ago during covid and he nailed it. Not getting a real graduation sucked for the students, but at least they got his fantastic commencement address.
500k? I once read that Friends’ main cast was paid 1M per episode and it was back in early 00’s. Didn’t expect such a huge gap
It’s a ridiculous high amount, they could’ve cut the cost with 400k per episode and still be overpaid for the amount of work they do
ABC made a ton of money off them though. It was a highly watched show right out the gate and through the entire run.
He was in finding Nemo. But I wish we could see him more, but then what is his range like? Pretty good on the show but it’s still ultimately a comedy
He has a pilot in development for the fall.
I saw that post a long time ago, it's like they have both been in other things, weird how they just seem to think they vanished.
She didn’t disappear she was in Hubie Halloween
Some people have never watched Hubie Halloween, and it shows
Claire was in Hubie Halloween on Netflix with Sandler
She was in an episode of Curb within the last two years
500k per episode be so fkn fr rn
The most NPC show ever lol
Some writers do this they find relatively unknown actors with talent give them great roles and when that project is successful they just stop acting or only do small projects Aaron paul for example it also happens with alot of videogame guys
Aaron paul has been working pretty steadily since BB. 6 years on Bojack, 2 seasons as a lead character on westworld. Half a dozen movies.
DAMMNNN $125,000,000 over 11 years + income from other acting jobs is crazy…. obviously there’s taxes to pay and insurance and whatever other variables that require your money in adult life, but other than that you can go live in a cave and make it a mansion.. like damn
Julie was in Totally Killer recently and for what little of it she was in she was awesome. But yep I miss seeing her as often as I saw her as Claire
Has anyone seen her in law and order SVU she was so good
I’m looking forward to when Phil makes his “nobody/John Wick” movie! It’s going to be amazing!
It's called "A mic drop". Very hard to execute unless you can back it up. They did.
Ngl I didn’t know they were taking 500k an episode at the end. Good for them.
I've only seen like 4 episodes of that show and just realized Ty Burrell and Andy Buckley are different people.
Phil has appeared as a voice actor in a number of things! A kids show my toddler was watching, I did a double take when Phil Dunphys voice came through
They have both F’ed their faces
Ty was fucking awesome in the second Muppets movie.
Work is work and actors without ego will take their spoils and go chill.
Also, it's really hard to find new, exciting projects when you played the same character for 10 years and became associated with it. It's quite rare to achieve the opposite, actually.
Is that the dude from Dawn of the dead and the chick from Happy Gilmore?
Never forget Phil Dunphy was in the best zombie movie of all time Dawn of the Dead lol
It’s crazy to be this good at portraying upper middle class Californians when you’ve got fucks everybody money irl. Love them.
Fingers crossed he returns to the MCU!
best? lol
Ty Burrell pretty much just does voiceover work now and he left Hollywood and moved far away. Julie Bowen is always shilling some stuff on Instagram, but I think she owns or partly owns whatever the company is.
Popular ≠ best
She was in Hubie Halloween with Adam Sandler
Julie Bowen gave half of her money to her ex husband.
I've recently seen Zoe Perry in an ad for a mobile game, one of those dumb pay2win games. Guess not every sitcom actor gets paid a lot.
I think the goal for a lot of actors is to land a role like this, make a huge sum, then live off interest residuals for 40 years.
Ty Burrell did an amazing joke as the dad, Jack, in Duncanville. That showed was hilarious and was really hitting its stride when it was cancelled after 3 seasons.
They are paying Sheldon one million an episode though
Julia Louise-Dreyfus doing Veep decades after the end of Seinfeld was brilliant. Not only was Veep one of the most well written comedies of the era (one of my all time favorites along w/ Seinfeld), enough time had passed that most viewers wouldn't immediately think of Selina as another "Elaine"
Preach, get that bank
Don’t forget Claire was already in a lot of series and movies for example LOST and an episode of Law and Order SVU