Jonah Hill’s $60K Payday for ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’
Donnie Azoff, the sidekick and confidante of amoral financial guru Jordan Belfort in "The Wolf of Wall Street," brings home million-dollar paychecks. But the check given to the actor who played him didn't have quite as many zeroes.
It's no secret that Jonah Hill really, really wanted the part of Azoff in Martin Scorsese's three-hour pop opera of decadence and debauchery, and part of his passionate lobbying for the role included taking a considerable pay cut: Hill received only $60,000 for the seven-month shoot, as revealed by the actor himself on The Stern Show.
Now on H100 @jonahhill tells @howardstern that he did the 7 month ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ shoot for $60,000 because he wanted the role so bad
— Stern Show (@sternshow) January 21, 2014
That's just a little bit less than co-star Leonardo DiCaprio's salary (wink, wink). He got $10 million for the Oscar-nominated film, according to StatisticBrain.com reports was $10 million … though, to be fair, that made for a 50 percent pay cut from Leo's $20 million payday for "The Great Gatsby." And while Jonah Hill isn't quite the same pay grade as his A-list co-star, $60K is pretty lowball for the actor, who has a net worth of $30 million, according to CelebrityNetWorth.com.
We guess it's somewhat cosmically appropriate that actors don't make as much as they usually do for a movie in which they play characters who make more money than God.
Meanwhile, the role has certainly paid off in other ways, as Hill has received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his off-the-wall, extremely funny and occasionally rather scary performance. This is actually his second Supporting Actor nod from the Academy, following the acknowledgement of his dramatic turn in "Moneyball" (2011), in which he played the sidekick and confidante to another A-list star (Brad Pitt).
Next up for Jonah Hill is two reunion projects with his "21 Jump Street" partner, Channing Tatum: "The Lego Movie" (in which they voice two DC Comics characters, Green Lantern and Superman, respectively), opening Feb. 7, and "22 Jump Street," opening June 14. Hill will probably get paid a little more than $60,000 for that last one.
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