During a recent interview with Howard Stern, Jonah Hill revealed that he was only paid $60,000 for The Wolf of Wall Street (which was a seven month shoot). Apparently, he wanted to work with Martin Scorsese so badly that he was willing to take a pay cut, which makes sense. When a director like Scorsese calls you to be in his movie you don’t worry about the paycheque. In fact, most actors would probably work with him for free.
As for Hill’s co-star, Mr. Leonardo DiCaprio, well, he didn’t exactly have to take a pay cut. For his efforts, he pocketed a cool $10 million. Pretty good for seven months of work, right?
While $60,000 isn’t exactly anything to scoff at, it’s still a rather low number given Hill’s level of fame. Granted, The Wolf of Wall Street isn’t a mega blockbuster, but I would never have thought that Hill’s salary would be that low and I especially didn’t think it would be that much lower than Leo’s. Plus, if he was only paid $60,000, I wonder how much some of the other supporting actors were paid. Considering Hill has second billing, people like Margot Robbie and Kyle Chandler were probably paid a lot less than him.
Regardless, the film still earned Jonah Hill an Oscar nom and gave him the chance to work with both a legendary actor and director. And in some ways, that’s worth more than a big paycheque. Don’t you agree?
Tell us, what do you think about Jonah Hill’s salary for The Wolf of Wall Street?