If we compare Hollywood and its money, we are talking about money in Hollywood style. So, if you noticed the actors like Pedro Pascal and your favorite rom-com star casually dropping their salary numbers, then you didn’t see things, trust me. A new era is here, where the paychecks are bigger, more public, and, frankly, a lot more complicated than before.
Do you still remember when Pedro Pascal was only known as the guy with the crushed head in Game of Thrones? Today, he is Hollywood’s most bankable star, not only because of his on-screen charm. His rise from minor roles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer to the leading man in The Mandalorian and The Last of Us is unbelievable. That path made him not only the 12th-highest-paid TV actor in 2021 but also one of the highest-paid TV stars of that year without a doubt.
Pascal’s per-episode salary for The Mandalorian was said to reach $400,000 to $500,000 in season three. Not terrible for a guy who began bringing home thousands for guest appearances. Put that into perspective with other Star Wars performers: Diego Luna on Andor earns $70,000–$90,000 an episode, and Ewan McGregor on Obi-Wan Kenobi is said to have earned $1 million an episode.
So, what is behind these jaw-dropping paychecks? Streaming. HBO Max, Disney+, and Netflix have shaken up the old pay models. Long network seasons and reliable residuals are mostly a thing of the past. Today, with shorter seasons and wider gaps between drops, residuals are flat fees no matter how many times fans binge-watch. Actors are battling for improved compensation and safeguards against AI, because outdated methods of calculating compensation simply don’t work anymore.
The gigantic pay disparity is there, of course. Pascal’s $10–12 million net is considerable, but it is nothing in comparison to what Hollywood legends have. For instance, Denzel Washington is worth $300 million and gets $20 million for movies such as The Equalizer 3 and Gladiator II. Robert Downey Jr. has $300 million, but more than $345 million of it is from the Marvel franchise. At the same time, most of the actors in Los Angeles make an average of $27.73 an hour. The gap between top-tier stars and regular working actors has never been as wide as it is now.
Nevertheless, what is really giving a head start to the game is the transparency factor. In the materialists, a rom-com, just the salary figure mentioned got everybody talking. According to Song, the director of the film, putting real numbers was on purpose—to make viewers discuss money, even though it is usually considered taboo. The new openness is a reflection of the reality where financial independence and self-esteem are the main focus, not only in films but also on social media and in ordinary life.
Moreover, it is not just a matter of numbers. The actors and the writers’ antagonism in the last minute shook Hollywood to its core with demands for higher pay, fairer residuals, and protection from AI technology. Fran Drescher, who is the President of the SAG-AFTRA, made the point that most actors, who are the majority, live on the wages of the working class, whereas the studio bosses, who are just a few, bring home tens of millions of dollars. The fight for fair pay is a bigger issue than Hollywood—it is a part of the larger national workers’ rights movement that is gaining ground.
Next time Pedro Pascal comes into the news, keep this in mind: it’s not only about his work. It’s about a changing industry where streaming, transparency, and a bit of uprising are redefining what it takes to be a star—and how much that star costs.