Every aspiring film actor yearns to make a living doing what they love. But if you reach a certain height of fame, you’ll make much more than a living. These nine stars may see a mind-boggling amount of zeroes on their paychecks, but they all had to start somewhere. Let’s dig in.
Dwayne Johnson (estimated net worth $800 million)
Johnson rocketed from unknown to audience favorite thanks to his time with WWE, following in the footsteps of his wrestler father, Rocky Johnson. “I’ll never forget it. When they did announce my name, I came out, and within 10 seconds I heard someone scream, ‘You fucking suck!’ ” Johnson told us about his in-ring debut. His first major leap to the big screen was a brief role in the prologue of 2001’s “The Mummy Returns,” for which he earned a reported $5.5 million. But the former wrestler has since laid the smack down on double-digit paydays in the millions of dollars for his roles in blockbuster hits like “Moana,” “Jungle Cruise,” and “San Andreas.” His largest paycheck was a reported $50 million in 2024 for his role in Jake Kasdan’s holiday movie “Red One.” However, in 2025, he took a pay cut to appear in Benny Safdie’s mid-budget MMA drama, “The Smashing Machine,” receiving a $4 million fee (and a Golden Globe nomination).
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Tom Cruise (estimated net worth $600 million)
Now a globally recognizable star, Cruise got his foot in the door with a tiny part across from Brooke Shields in the 1981 drama “Endless Love.” He gradually moved up into starring roles like “The Outsiders” and his leading man breakout, “Risky Business,” earning a mere $75,000 for the latter. Three years later, in “Top Gun,” his salary had been bumped up to a reported $2 million. When Cruise returned for “Top Gun: Maverick” in 2022, his upfront salary was increased to approximately $13 million, not including his share of the profits. It was all about the sequels over the last few years for this star, whose “Mission: Impossible” franchise has earned him more than $420 million in salary and profits across eight movies.
Robert Downey Jr. (estimated net worth $300 million)
If you suggested, even one year before “Iron Man” hit theaters, that Downey Jr. would become one of the most influential—and highly paid—figures in Hollywood, no one would have believed you. Son of writer-director Robert Downey Sr., the charismatic actor got his acting start on the New York stage before John Hughes’ “Weird Science” launched him into ’80s stardom. Downey Jr. had his first Oscar nomination by 28 years old, but personal issues derailed him for years. He worked to overcome them, and director Jon Favreau took a chance casting him as Tony Stark in “Iron Man,” for which he was reportedly paid just $500,000. The 2010 sequel earned him more than $10 million, and in 2012, his role in “The Avengers” brought in $50 million (a $10 million base salary and a portion of the movie’s gross profits, which were in the billions). The character might have bid the Marvel Cinematic Universe farewell in 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame,” but Downey Jr. hasn’t. He will return as the villain Doctor Doom in “Avengers: Doomsday” and “Avengers: Secret Wars,” a two-part epic that will reportedly net the actor $100 million on its own.
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Leonardo DiCaprio (estimated net worth $300 million)
What could have been: DiCaprio told Interview magazine he almost quit acting altogether at a young age to become a breakdancer. Luckily, he scored work on commercials shortly afterward and was off to the races from there. The actor, whose total box office gross is just under $7 billion, spent years in the rarefied “$20 million a movie” club, but went down to $15 million for Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” in 2019. For his latest, Paul Thomas Anderson’s 13-time Oscar-nominated “One Battle After Another,” DiCaprio took home $25 million.
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Sandra Bullock (estimated net worth $250 million)
Here’s some inspiration: Bullock was once a hungry, aspiring actor reading Backstage for her big break. “I look back and I say, ‘Every single thing I have today is because I picked up Backstage every Thursday,’ ” the actor told us. Bullock would go on to become one of our most beloved performers, charming her way through the ’90s all the way to a $5 million payday for her Oscar-winning role in “The Blind Side.” By 2013, she was able to net a whopping $70 million total for “Gravity,” which included $20 million upfront. She earned that same $20 million in 2022 for “The Lost City,” and fellow A-listers Brad Pitt and George Clooney reportedly offered the fee for Bullock to return to the “Ocean’s” franchise.
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Samuel L. Jackson (estimated net worth $250 million)
Jackson is one of the most well-compensated performers working today, and don’t ever let anyone tell you he didn’t earn it. The actor has over 200 credits to his name, tallying more than $14 billion at the box office—good enough to hold the highest-grossing actor title from 2011 to 2025. All of this started on the stage: A young Jackson starred in the original 1981 Off-Broadway production of Charles Fuller’s “A Soldier’s Play.” During that time, he met then-up-and-coming filmmaker Spike Lee, who cast him in early work such as “School Daze” and “Do the Right Thing.” These days, Jackson nets $2 million to $3 million for brief cameos as Nick Fury in MCU films.
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Scarlett Johansson (estimated net worth $165 million)
An alum of the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, Johansson first dipped her toe into acting with a small Off-Broadway role opposite Ethan Hawke in Jonathan Marc Sherman’s “Sophistry,” a far cry from where she is now. The actor who brought Black Widow to life in the MCU has earned over $60 million from that franchise alone, which includes $20 million for her 2021 solo film. Life after Marvel has been just as lucrative. Following her lead role in “Jurassic World: Rebirth,” Johansson overtook Samuel L. Jackson as the highest-grossing actor of all time—a title she held on to for a few months (more on that below).
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Zoe Saldaña (estimated net worth $80 million)
Sit down to watch a blockbuster from the past two decades and there’s a good chance you’ll see Saldaña. She’s been in J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” films as Nyota Uhura, the MCU as “Guardians of the Galaxy” member Gamora, and James Cameron’s “Avatar” films as Neytiri. In 2026, her money-raking résumé officially notched her the title of the highest-grossing actor in history. Saldaña reportedly made $4 million on the first “Avatar” film, a salary she was able to double for its 2022 sequel, “Avatar: The Way of Water.”
Margot Robbie (estimated net worth $60 million)
Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street” might have been Robbie’s major breakthrough, but the actor reportedly netted less than $500,000 for the role (compared to DiCaprio’s $10 million takeaway). Fast-forward a decade and the in-demand star rocketed her way to becoming the second highest-paid actor of 2023 thanks to her star-producer status in Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie.”