The Most Expensive Acting Roles In TV History

The salaries of some television actors are absolutely staggering, especially when you consider how many episodes series on broadcast television typically include in one season. In 1996, the cast of "Friends" made television history when they collectively bargained for a raise, demanding equal pay for each cast member. In 2002, "Friends" made history again when each cast member negotiated a $1 million dollar per episode salary for the last two seasons of their hit series.

The bargaining power of this cast set a precedent for how much a network television cast could make and showed the power of collective bargaining. "I thought it was the most important thing — as we all did — that we all were equal in every single way," Courtney Cox told Howard Stern in 2021. "That was the first time that people had all stuck together in a cast. I think it was scary, probably, for productions after that."

The central cast of "The Big Bang Theory," Kaley Cuoco, Johnny Galecki, and Jim Parsons reportedly made $1 million per episode, but later made television history for actually taking a pay cut to $900,000 an episode, matching the salaries of Kunal Nayyar and Simon Helberg so the newer cast additions, Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch, could get a raise. In the years following the "Friends" era, we saw quite a few television actors secure huge paychecks for their hit series. Join us as we review the most expensive acting roles in TV history.

After losing "Seinfeld," NBC was stuck between a rock and a hard place when assessing their fall line-up for the next season. Seinfeld's $1 million dollar deal emboldened Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser, who negotiated a cool million each per episode (per The New York Times) for one more season of "Mad About You." Hunt and Reiser cashed in and transformed their solid, but never spectacular, TV following and Hunt's burgeoning film career into a lucrative deal for their last season as the Buchmans.

"There's a virus infecting the industry," Dick Wolf told Entertainment Weekly, in the aftermath of their salary coup, adding, "Forty-four million for the actors on a 15-share show? It's a dangerous era in terms of salaries." But executives at NBC argued Hunt and Reiser had earned a high-paying swan song. "We've asked this show to do a job for us on almost every night of the week," an NBC senior executive said. "It's helped on Saturday, Sunday, Thursday, and Tuesday," night line-ups.

These $1 million per episode deals showed the lengths networks would go to keep their popular shows going for just one more season once they proved their earning power. While there are many roles that earned over $1 million per episode, this price became a benchmark for keeping stars who made their mark on the small screen, rather than losing them to the huge paydays of the big screen.

Kerry Washington cemented her stardom in the ABC series "Scandal," where she made $250,000 per episode playing Olivia Pope (per Pure Wow). It was Washington's turn as Mia Warren, a single mother and visual artist with a mysterious past, in the Hulu adaptation of the bestselling novel, "Little Fires Everywhere," that earned the actress $1.1 million dollars per episode (per Business Insider). Washington was also an executive producer on the series with her co-star, Reese Witherspoon.

Washington is the only woman of color to make it onto this list for playing one of the most expensive acting roles in TV history. This fact only highlights the reality there is still work to be done for pay parity, not only between men and women but for people of color in television. In 2021, Angela Bassett became the highest-paid woman of color on network broadcast television, showing there is also a discrepancy between salaries for prestige TV and broadcast television for women.

"Given the fact that Hollywood is a white, male-dominated industry, it's not surprising that you would find women of color underpaid relative to pretty much every other group," Dr. Darnell Hunt, a professor of sociology and African-American studies at UCLA told Forbes. Part of this discrepancy between salaries in television roles is because women of color are being cast in lead roles less often than other groups, compounding the pay gap between races, and affecting representation.

In 1997, when Tim Allen negotiated $1.25 million per episode to play Tim "the tool man" Taylor in "Home Improvement" for the eighth and final season of the series, he became the highest-paid actor on television (per Variety). At the time Allen secured this contract, "Home Improvement" was ABC's highest-rated series, and keeping the actor, who was also a producer on the hit series, for another season was of paramount importance to ABC.

In the documentary, "Home Improvement – A Half Hour of Power," it was revealed that ABC wanted a ninth season of "Home Improvement," but both Allen and his television wife, Patricia Richardson, were ready to call it quits and move on professionally. The network offered Allen $50 million to do another season, while they offered Richardson $25 million, but both stars declined the generous offers. "I couldn't have gone on, 'cause it would have been for the wrong reasons," Allen explained.

Although Allen continued acting after his hit series, his salary has never soared as high as what he made during the last season of "Home Improvement," and he reportedly made approximately $235,000 an episode for "Last Man Standing." It's safe to assume Allen is still making money from the syndication of "Home Improvement" and residuals from his turn as Buzz Lightyear in the "Toy Story" films. His historically expensive role as Tim Taylor has Allen set up for life.

Taylor Sheridan's neo-western series, "Yellowstone," on the Paramount Network is one of the most popular series on television, and Sheridan's western universe is ever expanding, with new series being added to the network regularly. Paramount has been casting lead roles in these series with big-name actors, and when you lure Oscar winners to prestige TV, the paycheck required is big. Kevin Costner is reportedly getting paid $1.3 million an episode to play John Dutton, the patriarch of the Dutton ranching family.

According to Outsider, the other principal cast members on "Yellowstone" are raking in $200,000 an episode, proving Costner is the big fish on the Western series. Although there have been some rumors about Costner leaving the hit series after Season 5, both Paramount Network and Costner's lawyer have insisted there is no truth to the rumors and the second installment of Season 5 will hit screens later in the year.

Of course, this Paramount series only has 14 episodes in Season 5, meaning Costner will make approximately $18.2 million dollars for the fifth season of the series. This is nothing compared to the money the cast of "Friends" and "Seinfeld" made on broadcast television with 22-24 episodes per season, but $1.3 million an episode qualifies John Dutton as one of the most expensive acting roles in TV history.

Many audience members met Dr. Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) for the first time in the popular '80s series, "Cheers," and millions of us got to know him a lot better in his spinoff series, "Frasier." The series followed Frasier from Boston where he was a regular at the bar (where everyone knows your name), back to Seattle for a fresh start with his father, Martin (John Mahoney), and younger brother, Niles (David Hyde Pierce), after a messy divorce. It's a rarity when a spinoff is as successful as the original series, but "Frasier" is the exception to the rule, winning 37 Emmys.

In 2001, Grammer reportedly negotiated a huge raise, taking home $1.6 million an episode for the last two seasons of the series (per People), making him the highest-paid actor on television for a while. This stratospheric salary earned Grammer $75 million over the last two seasons of the series, making Frasier one of the most expensive acting roles in TV history for years to come, while the "Frasier" reboot should add some more coin to Dr. Crane's coffers. It's worth noting, Pierce, who won't be returning for the reboot, reportedly negotiated $1 million per episode to play Niles for the last two seasons of the series, making $44 million.

During his last season on the hit series, "Two and A Half Men," Charlie Sheen negotiated an absurd $100 million deal to continue starring in the series (per The Hollywood Reporter), and Sheen was paid a staggering $1.8 million per episode to play Charlie Harper. When Sheen negotiated this deal, it made him the highest-paid actor on television for a brief period, but Sheen's battle with show creator Chuck Lorre soon overshadowed this historic TV salary. The actor's very public mental health meltdown and subsequent firing from the hit series came swiftly, and they replaced Sheen on the show with a new character played by Ashton Kutcher.

A decade after Sheen's dismissal from the show, the actor expressed his regret over his behavior. "There was 55 different ways for me to handle that situation, and I chose number 56. And so, you know, I think the growth for me post-meltdown or melt forward or melt somewhere — however you want to label it — it has to start with absolute ownership of my role in all of it," Sheen told Yahoo!. "And it was desperately juvenile." Of course, Sheen didn't burn all his bridges in Hollywood, because he went on to star in "Anger Management" on FX just one year later.

Reese Witherspoon has become an entertainment mogul with her production company Hello Sunshine, and one of the richest women in Hollywood. Although Witherspoon started out in the film industry, she has branched out into prestige television as an executive producer in recent years. She's still bringing home the bacon with her acting skills, though, as she reportedly made $1.1 million per episode playing Elena Richardson in the Hulu adaptation of "Little Fires Everywhere" (per Cosmopolitan).

Witherspoon also took home $1 million per episode for Season 2 of HBO's runaway hit, "Big Little Lies" (via Forbes), in which she plays sassy Madeline Martha Mackenzie and was an executive producer with her co-star, Nicole Kidman. The payday for Season 2 of the series certainly makes this role one of prestige TV's most expensive.

In addition, Witherspoon made an estimated $2 million per episode playing Bradley Jackson in Season 2 of "The Morning Show," and took home $1.25 million an episode for Season 1 of the Apple TV series about two journalists working on a morning news show when a male co-host is accused of sexual harassment. With these three high-paying roles, Witherspoon is making TV history and her own calls in Hollywood.