By the looks of Forbes recently released list of the highest paid TV actors, if you wanted to get paid the big bucks you only needed to appear on pretty much one of three TV shows: The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men and Modern Family.
Four actors from The Big Bang Theory alone raked in a whopping $96 million. The two leads from Two and a Half Men grabbed $35 million. And four more actors from Modern Family grabbed $43.5 million. So 10 of the top 15 highest paid actors on television were from just three shows, leaving just four other shows on the list: NCIS, Grey’s Anatomy, The Mentalist and House of Cards. Ray Romano apparently is still making fat stacks from Everybody Love Raymond re-runs.
Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory: $29 million
Johnny Galecki, The Big Bang Theory: $27 million
Mark Harmon, NCIS: $20 million
Kunal Nayyar, The Big Bang Theory: $20 million
Simon Helberg, The Big Bang Theory: $20 million
Ashton Kutcher, Two and a Half Men: $20 million
Jon Cryer, Two and a Half Men: $15 million
Ray Romano, Parenthood/Everybody Loves Raymond: $15 million
Patrick Dempsey, Grey’s Anatomy: $12 million
Simon Baker, The Mentalist: $12 million
Ty Burrell, Modern Family: $11.5 million
Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Modern Family: $11 million
Ed O’Neill, Modern Family: $10.5 million
Eric Stonestreet, Modern Family: $10.5 million
Kevin Spacey, House of Cards: $9.5 million
Looks like network TV is still the place to be if you want to make serious bank as an actor.