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"They gave me the lowest amount of money possible, that was their offer...I said, 'I will sign the paper tonight.'"
But when Jonah Hill was offered the $60,000 to star as stockbroker Donnie Azoff in the Martin Scorsese-directed "Wolf of Wall Street," he still jumped at the chance.
"I got to f------ be in a Martin Scorsese movie and I just got nominated for an Oscar," Hill told Howard Stern yesterday on The Howard Stern Show. "I'm tripping out, Howard ... I'm in shock. I'm totally in shock."
The 30-year-old actor admits he would have done anything to be in the film.
"They gave me the lowest amount of money possible, that was their offer," he continued on Stern's radio show. "I said, 'I will sign the paper tonight. Fax me the papers tonight.' I want to sign them tonight before they change their mind. I said I want to sign them before I go to sleep tonight so they legally can't change their mind."
"So you got paid $60,000 for that movie?" Stern clarified.
"It was the minimum. I think SAG minimum is something like $60,000 before commissions and taxes," Hill confirmed. "Yeah, for an almost seven-month shoot. I would sell my house and give him all my money to work for [Scorsese] ... I would have done anything in the world. I would do it again in a second."
But unlike some of his peers in the industry, Hill says "It's not about money for me. None of this s--- is about money. I want to make money to pay my rent, and hopefully have a family one day and have kids and stuff."
The pay cut paid off. Hill was nominated for an Oscar last week for his role in the film.
"I am in complete and total shock," Hill said in a statement after receiving the nod in the Best Supporting Actor category. "I honestly was not expecting this, on a level you can't even imagine. Again, I'm clearly in shock. I didn't have a plan for celebrating today because I truly did not expect any of this...Truly, this is shocking."
Hill was previously nominated for an Oscar for 2011's "Moneyball."