The World's Highest-Paid TV Actresses of 2015

By Madeline Berg

Our relationships with TV characters may be some of the most intimate we have with people who are just, well, characters. With unfaltering regularity, characters enter our homes and demand our attention. Once immersed in the small screen, it can be easy to forget about the actresses behind the characters: Sofia becomes Gloria, Robin becomes Claire, and Julianna, who for so long was Nurse Carol, slowly shifts to become Alicia.

But while we are busy being mesmerized by their on-screen personas, these women are busy making money: Sofia Vergara and Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting more than any others, banking $28.5 million apiece pretax between June 1, 2014, and June 1, 2015, to rank as the world’s highest-paid TV actresses.

As in previous years, impressive sit-com contracts buoy the women leading the list. Sofia Vergara and Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting’s super-sized deals with Modern Family and The Big Bang Theory, respectively, are largely responsible for their big paydays. Vergara, who is enjoying her fourth consecutive year as the highest-paid TV actress, padded her television income with lucrative endorsement deals—including one with CoverGirl and one with Head and Shoulders—while continuing to run the talent management and entertainment-marketing firm Latin World Entertainment that she cofounded in 1994.

Cuoco-Sweeting, along with her Big Bang co-stars Jim Parsons and Johnny Galecki, scored big when she negotiated a reported $1 million per episode salary last year. Between the successful show and a top-dollar endorsement contract with Priceline.com, Cuoco-Sweeting made her way up to the top of the list, joining Vergara for the first time.

Cuoco-Sweeting and Vergara may have been the only TV actresses to make the $28.5 million cut off for this year’s Celebrity 100, the annual list of top-paid entertainers, but plenty of small screen stars cleaned up. A total of 15 TV actresses made over $5 million in our scoring period, with New Girl star Zooey Deschanel rounding out the list with $5 million in earnings.

Vergara’s Modern Family co-star Julie Bowen is one of four newcomers, landing in third place with $12 million in earnings thanks to her fruitful contract and an endorsement deal with Bridgestone. New faces also include Emily Deschanel, who is making an estimated $6.5 million from the Fox crime drama Bones and Pauley Perrette who banked $6 million starring in CBS’ 12 season hit NCIS. Finally, Robin Wright, who made $5.5 million from Netflix favorite House of Cards, made the list for the first time; her earnings finally caught up to the critical acclaim she has received during her tenure as Mrs. Underwood.

Veterans on the list include high-earners Ellen Pompeo of Grey’s Anatomy, Mariska Hargitay of Law & Order: SVU and Julianna Margulies of The Good Wife, who made an estimated $11.5 million, $11 million and $10.5 million, respectively, thanks to top dollar contracts and syndication deals.

The funny women of television should not be forgotten, as laughs have proven a lucrative form of entertainment. Amy Poehler banked $10.5 million from her role as Leslie in the final season of Parks and Recreation, a star part on Netflix’s Wet Hot American Summer and best-selling book Yes Please. Mindy Kaling also has a book—the much-anticipated Why Not Me?, which will be released Sept. 15—to thank for her successful year. Between the collection of essays, her show The Mindy Project and endorsement deals with American Express and Nationwide, Kaling earned $9 million.

Patricia Heaton and Tina Fey may be best known for Everybody Loves Raymond and 30 Rock, respectively, but are back on the list thanks to new shows. Heaton, who earned $7 million, now stars on the ABC comedy The Middle, while Fey, who made $6.5 million, wrote and produced the new Netflix hit Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

Still, the lack of racial diversity on the list reflects a depressing onscreen reality. Vergara, Kaling, and Scandal star Kerry Washington, who made $7 million, are the only minority actresses to make the ranking. UCLA’s annual report on diversity in film and TV found that among broadcast comedy and drama leads, minorities were underrepresented by a factor of 7 to 1, while cable shows underrepresented minorities by more than 2 to 1.

Hopefully as America begins to welcome more television shows featuring primarily Hispanic or African American characters—Fox’s Empire, ABC’s Blask-ish, Lifetime’s Devious Maids or the CW’s Jane the Virgin, for example—the paychecks of these actresses will catch up, and we will see a list including Taraji Henson, Tracee Ellis Ross or Gina Rodriguez in the years to come.

While the salaries of the actresses on this list are undeniably substantial, TV stars still experience a significant pay gap when compared to their male counterparts. The cut-off to be on this year’s list of top-paid TV actors was $9.5 million—$4.5 million more than that for TV actresses—as we continue to see actors out-earning actresses and landing the lead role more often. As with racial diversity, this underrepresentation of females is found across the entertainment industry and in all aspects of development. According to the aforementioned study, women are underrepresented among cable comedy and drama leads, broadcast reality leads and cable reality leads. Among creators of both broadcast and cable comedies and dramas, women are underrepresented by a factor of at least 2 to 1.

Another pay-gap occurs between movie and television stars. Film actresses make more than those who are primarily featured on the small screen, despite many cultural outlets hailing the current entertainment landscape as the golden age of television. As the Celebrity 100 list proves, the increased prestige and quality of TV does not translate into increased paychecks: Jennifer Lawrence, this year’s top-paid film actress, made $52 million, almost double that of Vergara and Cuoco-Sweeting. But if TV continues to heat up and networks and studios begin to address the issue of women’s gross underrepresentation in television, then it may not be long until both of these pay-gaps grow small and hopefully, one day, non-existent.

See the complete list here.

Methodology: The list measures earnings before subtracting management fees and taxes. Figures are based on data from Nielsen, IMDb and other sources, as well as on interviews with agents, managers, lawyers, industry insiders and the stars themselves. Our list of the world’s highest-paid TV actors was published last month.

Additional reporting by Kate Pierce.