Rachel McAdams' Impressive Net Worth in 2023

Rachel McAdams rose to fame in the 2000s, starring in a string of cinematic hits including The Notebook (2004), Mean Girls (2004) and Wedding Crashers (2005). The Canadian actress surprised everyone by taking a year or two off following those films, then returned swinging, with credits including Sherlock Holmes and The Vow. In 2016, she received her first Oscar nomination for Spotlight. Next up, she'll star in Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, an adaptation of the beloved Judy Bloom book.

McAdams's impressive career has resulted in an equally impressive net worth. Let's take a look at what she's earned over the years.

What is Rachel McAdams' net worth?

Rachel McAdams' net worth in 2023 is $25 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. She's made most of her money as a movie actress, although she's also graced the small screen: She got her start on the Canadian TV series Slings & Arrows (2003) and then starred in the second season of HBO's True Detective in 2014.

Related: Sparks Will Fly! All About Rachel McAdams's Enviable Love Life

How much did Rachel McAdams get paid for Mean Girls?

It's unclear what McAdams earned for the 2004 movie. Her co-star Lindsay Lohan was reportedly paid $1 million, and it's possible McAdams made a similar amount since she was the movie's second lead. But keep in mind that Lohan had already starred in The Parent Trap, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen and Freaky Friday by that point, so she was the more in-demand actress. (The Notebook and Mean Girls came out in the same year, which means McAdams' payday for the latter was probably set before either movie catapulted her to fame.)

One way casting McAdams cost the Mean Girls production budget? According to Rajiv Surendra, who played Kevin Gnapoor in the film, the actress didn't want to bleach her hair, so they had to buy her an expensive blonde wig.

“They had a wig made out of human hair by a very well-known wig maker from this little town called Stratford, Ontario,” Surendra told Seventeen. “They actually would wash [the wig] and put this little shower cap thing on it that they would hook the blow dryer onto that would dry the wig. It was like a $10,000 wig.”

Related: 5 Things You Didn't Know About Rachel McAdams

How old was McAdams when she shot Mean Girls?

McAdams was 26 years old when she shot Mean Girls, making her 10 years older than her Queen Bee character, Regina George.

"I remember when I read [the script for Mean Girls], I called my agent right away and said, 'I will play any part in this, please, please, please,'" McAdams told The New York Times. "I was at the beginning of my career, and it was a lofty thing out there, that I really, really, really wanted to do."

How much did Rachel McAdams get paid for The Notebook?

McAdams' exact paycheck for The Notebook hasn't been shared publicly. Her co-star Ryan Gosling was reportedly paid $1 million for the movie, so it's possible she made a similar amount. But keep in mind that Gosling, although hardly a household name at the time, was the slightly more established Hollywood actor in 2004—and male actors are often paid more than their female counterparts regardless.

McAdams' salary saw a spike following her early success. She reportedly earned $4 million for The Time Traveler’s Wife and in the $5 million range for Sherlock Holmes. Both movies came out in 2009.

Has Rachel McAdams been nominated for an Oscar?

McAdams was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 2016 for her role in Spotlight, which tells the true story of the Boston Globe journalists who uncovered a massive scandal among Catholic priests in the Boston area.

McAdams lost to Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl), but Spotlight won Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay—and McAdams further solidified her place in Hollywood.

Did Rachel McAdams work at McDonald's?

Before she became a Hollywood darling, McAdams actually worked shifts at McDonald's. But as she admitted in an interview with Glamour, she wasn't the best at the job.

"[I worked at McDonald's] for a good three years," she said. "I was not a great employee; I broke the orange juice machine one day." She was also quick to note that McDonald's itself wasn't the problem—it was her. McAdams added, "I had a little bit of an OCD thing with hand washing and just didn't have time. They were like, 'Hey, the drive-through's backing up. Stop washing your hands!'"

How did Rachel McAdams get her start?

McAdams says she knew she wanted to be an actor when she was a 7-year-old in Ontario, Canada, where she was raised by a truck-driver father and nurse mother. "I think I was about 7 or 8, and I wrote [my parents] a letter telling them I really wanted to be an actor," she once told Jimmy Fallon. "I felt really shy about it, so I put it in writing and put it somewhere they could find it."

She started acting with the Original Kids Theatre Company in London, Ontario, when she was 12 and continued doing theater throughout high school. She enrolled in the Drama program at York University, started taking on small TV roles, and graduated in 2001. By 2004, she won a Gemini Award for her supporting performance in the Canadian series Slings & Arrows—and then came The Notebook and Mean Girls, and, well, the rest is history.

“[Becoming a movie star] wasn’t something I really meditated on or planned for in any way," McAdams told the Los Angeles Times. "I really thought I’d be doing theater in Canada. I’d grown up doing children’s theater there, and I always imagined myself being artistic director of a children’s theater company.”

Where does Rachel McAdams live?

Despite working in Los Angeles, McAdams has chosen to live in Toronto, Canada. As she told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, "That's kind of everything for me and for my sanity. It helps me be better in my work to just step away from [Hollywood]."

McAdams added to that sentiment in an interview with The Scotsman in 2012. "I like living where we have socialized health care," she said. "I don’t have to own a car. I can ride my bike around the city and I can potter about in my garden."

What does Rachel McAdams do now?

McAdams' most recent role was in the 2022 Marvel movie Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. She will next be seen in 2023's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.

Next, Everything To Know About the Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret Movie