How the salaries of 'Game of Thrones' actors compare to TV's highest-paid stars
- "Game of Thrones" actors like Kit Harrington and Emilia Clarke are paid $500,000 an episode, while others, like Sophie Turner, are paid $175,000 an episode.
- Turner told Harper's Bazaar that equal pay on the show is a "bit tricky," and that she's fine with her costars getting paid more.
- How do the "Game of Thrones" salaries stack up against some of the highest-paid actors on television?
The final season of "Game of Thrones" begins this month, and the actors got big raises ahead of it.
Cast members Kit Harrington (who plays Jon Snow), Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen), Lena Heady (Cersei Lannister), Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister), and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) were making $500,000 an episode in 2017, according to Variety.
Meanwhile, costars Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark), Maisie Williams (Arya Stark), and Isaac Hempstead Wright (Bran Stark) were making $175,000 an episode.
Turner acknowledged the pay gap in an interview with Harper's Bazaar, saying equal pay on the series is "a little tricky."
"Kit got more money than me, but he had a bigger storyline," Turner said. "And for the last series, he had something crazy like 70 night shoots, and I didn't have that many. I was like, 'You know what ... you keep that money.'"
But there are other TV stars who make more than even the highest-paid "Game of Thrones" actors do.
Norman Reedus is making $1 million an episode for "The Walking Dead" after his costar Andrew Lincoln departed the show, according to Variety. The stars of HBO's "Westworld" are getting big raises ahead of the sci-fi drama's third season, The Hollywood Reporter reported in October.
And Jim Parsons of CBS' "The Big Bang Theory" made headlines last summer for walking away from a reported two-year, $50 million paycheck for two more seasons of the sitcom, which CBS subsequently decided to end this year.
Below are some of TV's highest-paid actors and how much they make per episode: