TV’s Biggest Salaries: Zendaya, Nicolas Cage, Selena Gomez and More Stars Earning Huge Paychecks

Peak TV may be over, but peak TV salaries haven’t gone away. The streaming revolution changed the game when it came to recruiting A-listers to appear in topline series on the small screen, and the biggest stars are still nabbing impressive paychecks.

The downturn in original series production has tightened up the marketplace overall. But with the right project arriving at the right moment, marquee names are still making bank in TV. The film business, on the other hand, has been in a state of limbo for most of this year as the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger has unfolded. The recent shake-up of Netflix’s content leadership has also put a crimp in dealmaking, at least temporarily, even as the film sector celebrates the buoyancy of the box office this year.

Some of the eye-popping salaries for TV series have been well documented, including the packages that brought Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon to Apple TV’s “The Morning Show” at around $2 million an episode. More recent TV recruits include Sylvester Stallone, who’s believed to be clearing about $2 million an episode for his work on Paramount+’s Taylor Sheridan-produced drama “Tulsa King.”

Others who have negotiated a pretty payday are “Only Murders in the Building” stars Selena Gomez, Steve Martin and Martin Short, who are easily clearing more than $1 million an episode as the series enters Season 6. And popular faces who can immediately attract a fan base are also fetching top coin: Jennifer Garner, for example, crossed the $1 million threshold for Peacock’s “The Five-Star Weekend.”

“The need for stars that can anchor these television shows is bigger than it’s ever been,” says one talent agent. “It used to be unheard of that someone would get $2 million an episode.”

Stars who have perhaps aged out of marquee film roles have particularly benefited from the new marketplace. They’ve found a lucrative home in streaming, where their draw remains valuable. And as opposed to the 22-episode TV season required in the broadcast network days, they’re attracted to the less taxing commitment that comes with a 6-, 8- or 10-episode order.

“Every star now is looking at how to anchor a series,” says an insider. “If you’re No. 1 or No. 2 on the call sheet, it’s really never been better financially.”

Even as the conventional wisdom remains that Hollywood is struggling and the job market is challenged, agents in the TV talent field are perhaps the most optimistic folks in the industry right now.

“The TV actor salary game is still a really good business,” says one agent. “There’s still a lot of money to be made as an actor on television. Certainly for the starriest names, those people are still getting toward the upper limit of anything that anyone’s ever made on television.”

Says another rep: “It definitely feels like the opportunities are there. I mean, it’s not 2016 to 2019, when everyone was just blasting a fire hose of cash into the community, which was totally unsustainable. Comparing anything to that time, when the streamers were out there spending like drunken sailors, is not a fair comp.”

Of course, this is mostly the top stars on the call sheets, as the boom times aren’t for everyone. It’s still tougher than it used to be for the middle class of actors — the ones who made a nice living by bouncing from pilot to pilot or show to show in the broadcast age. Back then, even if you didn’t wind up on a hit show, you could still do OK.

Those days are gone — but so are the rigid exclusivity clauses that used to prevent actors from working on more than one TV series at a time. Because episodic orders are shorter now, limiting ultimate take-home pay, the networks and studios are more willing to let stars moonlight. (That’s especially true of those getting top billing: Just ask the ubiquitous Nicole Kidman.)

Eight years ago, when California banned the use of the “actor’s quote” — the rate an actor was paid for a previous role, which was used as that performer’s salary baseline in negotiations — more pay parity was brought to the business. “It’s leveled the playing field quite a bit,” an agent says. “Now the pay depends on the role.” Women and minorities, especially, who traditionally got paid less, can now demand more.

Among the major outlets, Apple is seen as the most competitive with salaries, with HBO and Amazon in the mix too. Even Peacock has shown a willingness to pay upward of $1 million an episode for talent like Garner. Paramount+, meanwhile, has attracted some top-tier talent (particularly on Sheridan and 101 Studios shows) by offering $1 million-plus an episode to some of its leads. Disney is seen as more spendthrift; FX, in particular, isn’t chasing as many high-salary stars as it focuses more on the power of the material with series like “Shōgun.”

If there’s any recent surprise, it’s how well the traditional broadcast networks are doing with their original scripted fare — and that’s attracting some major TV stars returning to the small screen, including Blair Underwood, Felicity Huffman, Peter Krause and Hope Davis. And those leads are getting paid as much as $250,000 to $350,000 an episode at the start, and more in success.

“It’s completely competitive with the top end of a hit show,” says one agent. “Obviously, in streaming, they’re going to pay you a hell of a lot more because they’re only doing eight episodes. But you can definitely still get paid in broadcast. It’s just without the obvious syndication windfalls that used to come with having those backend points.”