Robert De Niro has topped the list of the TV stars with the highest earnings in drama. The 74-year-old actor gets paid $775,000 per episode of an "Untitled David O. Russell project" that will premiere on Amazon later this year.
He bested the second-ranked TV veteran Mark Harmon, who banks $525,000 per episode of "NCIS," which has been on air since 2003.
Claire Danes from "Homeland" and Ellen Pompeo of "Grey's Anatomy" both trail them by $50,000 with the actresses receiving a measly $450,000 per episode.
Dwayne Johnson, the 6th highest paid actor of a comedy show, gets much less — $650,000. However, he may not be too upset about it — "The Rock" managed to become the world's highest paid actor in 2016 as he scored his biggest ever annual paycheck, according to Forbes.
There is no doubt that television has finally evolved to a point where it is no longer considered an inferior art form to cinema. There's no shame in being in a serial, on the contrary, more and more actors with big names are moving in: Kevin Spacey, Bryan Cranston and many others have successfully put a new spin on their careers by starring in TV series.
Variety also explains the outrageous sums paid to the leading actors with "the explosion of demand for high-end TV series and the emergence of deep-pocketed new buyers such as Netflix and Amazon."
