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Angela Bassett‘s pay increase has made her the highest-paid actress of color.
As Fox’s 9-1-1 heads into season 5, Bassett has secured approximately $450,000 an episode. According to Deadline, she is also amongst the top-earning actors, male or female, on network television.
(Photo by Gregg DeGuire/FilmMagic)
The award-winning actress serves as the series lead and executive producer to both 9-1-1 and its spinoff, 9-1-1: Lone Star. Bassett assisted with the development of the show in which Ryan Murphy created specifically for her.
Bassett isn’t the only castmate to receive a raise. Her co-star and male lead Peter Krause has received a 25% raise believed to be in the low $300K per episode range. Jennifer Love Hewitt is set to receive a similar amount while the rest of the cast — Aisha Hinds, Oliver Stark, Ryan Guzman, Kenneth Choi, and Rockmond Dunbar — will receive $80,000 an episode. Once the series heads into its sixth season, that number is projected to increase to $100K an episode.
Although it’s hard to determine with great certainty where the 62-year-old actress ranks amongst her other Black counterparts, TV Line stated that Kerry Washington was making $80,000 an episode when she first started on Scandal. Before the series concluded, Washington made $250K per episode. As the lead for her Hulu miniseries Little Fires Everywhere, the NAACP Image-Award winning actress commanded $1.1 million for each episode.
Meanwhile, Viola Davis reportedly made $250K an episode on the first two seasons of How to Get Away With Murder and “by the ABC series’ end mayyyy have been closing in on $450K.”
Chandra Wilson of Grey’s Anatomy was bumped up to “at least” $125k an episode in 2007 but with the exit of former costar Justin Chambers, she’s reportedly closer to $375K an episode.
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