Jason Isaacs has revealed The White Lotus cast were paid $40,000 an episode.
Jason Isaacs has revealed The White Lotus cast payday
The 62-year-old actor – who played Timothy Rafliff in all eight episodes of the HBO anthology show’s third season – has confirmed that each cast member was paid the same amount, which is relatively low for a hit series of that stature.
Jason told Vulture magazine: “I didn’t know that was public knowledge. That’s absolutely true.”
He insisted that Hollywood stars don’t often like to discuss their paydays publicly because of the nature of their work.
He explained: “Generally actors don’t talk about pay in public because it’s ridiculously disproportionate to what we do — putting on makeup and funny voices — and just upsets the public.
“But compared to what people normally get paid for big television shows, that’s a very low price.
“But the fact is, we would have paid to be in it. We probably would have given a body part.
The Harry Potter star had already built an impressive resume over the past few decades with roles in The Patriot, Peter Pan, Star Wars Rebels, Black Hawk Down and The Death of Stalin.
However, Jason claimed he doesn’t “work for money”, and had no issue being paid the same as his less-experienced co-stars, like Patrick Schwarzenegger.
He said: “Do I mind that I wasn’t paid more than other people? I never work for money. I mean, I’ve done all right.
“People will think I have huge stockpiles of money but sadly, what I’ve done rather immaturely is expand my outgoings to match my incomings and pretty much spent everything I’ve earned over the years.”
Meanwhile, Jason revealed after The Patriot in 2000, he was turned down chances to play “lots of bad guys opposite all the A-list macho-male stars”, but he rejected the offers to focus on theatre and the part of a drag queen in 2001’s Sweet November.
He admitted: “Well, financially I regret it. I don’t regret it career-wise or artistically. There’s a number of things I could have done over the years that would’ve made me rich.
“And now that I’m toward the autumn of my career, I think maybe I’m an idiot and I should have done some of those things and just banked it, because other people do.
“I’m constantly flicking through streamers, and I see well-known actors and go, Wow, when did they do that? And they obviously just went away for a month somewhere and made some money. I’ve not done that.”
