HBO gives Westworld stars a $250,000 pay raise per episode

HBO renegotiated the salaries of the main characters of Westworld before the start of the third season, and the current report is that each person will receive $250,000 per episode, which is almost double the previous two seasons. It was previously reported that even veteran actors such as Ed Harris, Rachel Wood (Dorothy), Jeffrey Wright (Bernard), and Thandie Newton (Maeve/Madam) only received $100,000 to $150,000 per episode before the salary increase.

The pay increase is partly due to the Time's Up equal pay movement initiated by celebrities such as Reese Witherspoon, and HBO executives promised months ago to investigate and correct the problem. After appeasing the main actors, the second-tier roles of "Westworld" will also receive a pay increase.

Surprisingly, characters like Teddy, played by James Marsden, and Charlotte Hale, whose tail is stretched to the sky, played by Tessa Thompson, are not on the first-line salary increase list, and outsiders suspect that these two characters will fade out of the third season.

Game of Thrones and Westworld are HBO's favorites. Although their popularity declined in the second season, their potential is still unlimited. The two seasons won a total of 43 Emmy nominations for the production team and the actors, and Newton alone won the Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as a brothel owner.

Even for HBO's top-tier series Game of Thrones, the main actors only received $150,000 per episode when they signed the contract. Before the seventh season began filming, the main actors united to demand a pay raise, and the final agreed price was $500,000-600,000 per episode; by the eighth and final season, the salary had risen to $1.2 million per episode!