5 Times Actors Accepted Less Money to Keep a Show on Air

TV

The news that the "Blue Bloods" actors took a pay cut to continue the series was surprising, other shows have made similar cuts in the past.

Published on April 17, 2023

Since its debut on CBS in 2010, Blue Bloods has been a consistent performer for the network. The show centers on a family working in law enforcement in New York. And as such, it features an ensemble cast of actors, many of whom have been in place since the beginning. Now it seems the Blue Bloods cast have to take a pay cut, though they’re far from the first to do so.

‘Blue Bloods’ continues with season 14 but at a price  

When Blue Bloods launched, Tom Selleck’s role as New York City Police Commissioner Frank Reagan was a big selling point. After all, Selleck is a TV veteran with decades of experience behind him on shows such as Magnum, P.I. But the series has thrived just as much due to co-stars Bridget Moynahan, Donnie Wahlberg, and Will Estes as Selleck at this point, making this latest news a bit disappointing.

On the one hand, Blue Bloods Season 14 is officially a go. But according to Deadline, the cast will return with a 25 percent pay cut. The show was reportedly tied up in negotiations, typical of a show this late in its run. And to be fair, that pay decrease affects all above-the-line talent, presumably including showrunner Kevin Wade and the rest of the producing team.

‘Blue Bloods’ is far from the only show to issue pay cuts for actors

Deadline reported the Blue Bloods actors and producers agreed to the pay cuts in order to keep hundreds of crew members and support personnel employed for at least another year. But it’s not the first time such a move has happened. Most of the principal cast of The Big Bang Theory took a $100,000-per-episode pay cut in support of co-stars Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch, who were holding out for equal pay for the whole cast, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Likewise, the cast of Friends banded together to ensure all six main cast members made the same amount. And the same thing happens in movies. Keanu Reeves, for instance, took a massive pay cut so that The Devil’s Advocate to afford to hire co-star Al Pacino. Kristen Stewart accepted a salary that was roughly 1 percent of her Twilight payday for On the Road. And Jonah Hill famously worked for scale so he could star in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street.

The series will likely end with season 15

With CBS’s budget cuts, it’s looking more and more like Blue Bloods could be reaching its end. A couple of years back, Selleck and Moynahan teased the possibility that the show could end after season 15. And that prediction could very well be coming to pass given this latest news.

It’s unclear if Blue Bloods Season 15 will happen at all, but it’s possible that it could mark the final season of the show. That would give the creative team to craft a worthwhile finale to please longtime fans and give the crew the opportunity to line up their next projects. Only time will tell.

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