The 20 Highest-Paid TV Actors of All Time, Ranked

Co-creator and star Paul Reiser anchored NBC's Manhattan comedy Mad About You for seven seasons starting in 1992. Ahead of the 22-episode seventh season in 1998, Reiser and co-star Helen Hunt secured matching deals worth $1 million per episode, making them among the earliest sitcom actors in the seven-figure club.

Fresh off winning four consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards for Lead Actress in a Comedy Series and an Academy Award for As Good as It Gets, Helen Hunt held enormous leverage in 1998. NBC paid Hunt $1 million per episode across the 22 installments of Mad About You's final original run from 1998 to 1999.

Portraying New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano on HBO's The Sopranos, James Gandolfini won three Primetime Emmy Awards and transformed prestige cable drama. Following a 2003 salary dispute, Gandolfini negotiated $1 million per episode for the 21-episode sixth season and shared $33,333 rebates with 16 castmates.

After five decades leading blockbuster film franchises like Star Wars and Indiana Jones, Harrison Ford took his first regular television starring role in 2022. Paramount+ paid Ford $1 million per episode to portray Montana ranch patriarch Jacob Dutton alongside Helen Mirren in Taylor Sheridan's drama 1923.

For the first seven seasons of CBS's hit sitcom The Big Bang Theory, Johnny Galecki portrayed experimental physicist Leonard Hofstadter under tiered salary bumps. In August 2014, Galecki joined co-stars Jim Parsons and Kaley Cuoco in signing a $1 million per-episode contract covering 72 episodes from Seasons 8 to 10.

Starring as Penny across all 279 episodes of CBS's The Big Bang Theory from 2007 to 2019, Kaley Cuoco reached $1 million per episode in Season 8. In 2017, Cuoco, Johnny Galecki, and Jim Parsons each trimmed their pay to $900,000 per episode to fund raises for Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch.

Jim Parsons won four Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe playing theoretical physicist Sheldon Cooper on CBS's The Big Bang Theory. Alongside his $1 million per-episode salary from 2014 onward and a 1 percent backend equity stake, Parsons earned extra executive producer fees narrating the spinoff Young Sheldon.

Although David Schwimmer received the earliest breakout offers during the first season of NBC's Friends, he convinced his five co-stars to bargain as a single unit starting in 1996. That solidarity paid off in 2002, when Warner Bros. paid every castmate $1 million per episode for Seasons 9 and 10.

Matt LeBlanc had just $11 in his bank account when he auditioned for Joey Tribbiani on NBC's Friends in 1994. By Seasons 9 and 10 from 2002 to 2004, LeBlanc collected $1 million for each of the final 42 episodes, followed by a lucrative $15 million guarantee to headline the two-season NBC spinoff Joey.

In 1998, Lisa Kudrow became the first member of the Friends ensemble to win a Primetime Emmy Award for her portrayal of eccentric masseuse Phoebe Buffay. Through the cast's collective bargaining pact, Kudrow rose from $22,500 per episode in Season 1 to $1 million per episode across Seasons 9 and 10.

When Friends debuted on NBC in September 1994, Courteney Cox was the highest-profile star in the cast thanks to Family Ties and Ace Ventura. Cox backed the ensemble's equal-pay agreement and earned $1 million per episode from 2002 to 2004, sharing a Guinness World Record with her female co-stars.

Co-creating and headlining NBC's comedy Seinfeld alongside Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld shattered industry pay ceilings in May 1997. NBC paid him $1 million per episode for the 22-episode ninth season, and he later turned down $5 million per episode for a tenth season while earning syndication royalties.

Throughout the 1990s, Tim Allen's family sitcom Home Improvement was a ratings powerhouse for ABC and Touchstone Television. To persuade Allen to return as hardware host Tim Taylor for a 28-episode eighth season from 1998 to 1999, the studio paid him $1.25 million per episode, totaling $35 million for a single season.

Academy Award winner Kevin Costner signed on to lead Taylor Sheridan's neo-Western drama Yellowstone in 2018 at $500,000 per episode. As the show became basic cable's highest-rated drama and earned Costner a Golden Globe Award in 2023, his salary climbed to $1.3 million per episode for Season 5.

After rising from NBC's comedy Parks and Recreation to film franchises in Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World, Chris Pratt returned to series television in 2022. Amazon Studios paid Pratt $1.4 million per episode to star as Navy SEAL Commander James Reece in The Terminal List.

Kelsey Grammer portrayed Seattle radio psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane for 20 consecutive years across Cheers and Frasier. For the final two NBC seasons of Frasier from 2002 to 2004, Grammer signed a record $1.6 million per-episode contract, and later commanded $2 million per episode on the Paramount+ revival.

In 2003, stand-up comedian and Emmy winner Ray Romano signed a deal with CBS that made him the highest-paid television actor in the world at the time. For the 16-episode ninth season of Everybody Loves Raymond from 2004 to 2005, Romano earned $1.825 million per episode plus a share of syndication profits.

Playing Malibu jingle writer Charlie Harper on CBS's sitcom Two and a Half Men, Charlie Sheen anchored television's highest-rated comedy for eight seasons. In May 2010, Sheen signed a two-year renewal worth $1.8 million per episode in base salary and backend points totaling nearly $2 million per episode.

Through her production company Hello Sunshine, Reese Witherspoon helped launch Apple TV+ in 2019 by starring as broadcast journalist Bradley Jackson on The Morning Show. Including executive producer fees and compensation bonuses, Witherspoon and co-star Jennifer Aniston each command $2 million per episode.

No performer has achieved two separate eras at the top of television's pay scale like Jennifer Aniston. Fifteen years after earning $1 million per episode on NBC's Friends and securing $20 million annually in syndication royalties, Aniston returned on Apple TV+'s The Morning Show at $2 million per episode.