Forbes annual Highest Paid Actress list arrived this morning. It tracks income from films and merchandising and endorsement deals and so on and prints the (estimated conjecture) total before management fees and taxes are removed. The endorsements is why household name celebrities, like Gwyneth Paltrow and Julia Roberts, stay on the list for years and years after their peak bankable actressing. Here's the list if you don't want to have to click through the 19 page gallery. But you will have to click through 19 pages if you want to know just how each of these women is making so much bank.
The list with our commentary after the jump
how well do you suppose she tips waiters?
01. Jennifer Lawrence $52 million
02. Scarlett Johansson $35.5 million
03. Melissa McCarthy $23 million
04. Bingbing Fan $21 million
05. Jennifer Aniston $16.5 million
06. Julia Roberts $16 million
07. Angelina Jolie $15 million
08. Reese Witherspoon $15 million
09. Anne Hathaway $12 million
10. Kristen Stewart $12 million
11. Cameron Diaz $11 million
12. Gwyneth Paltrow $9 million
13. Meryl Streep $8 million
14. Amanda Seyfried $8 million
15. Sandra Bullock $8 million
16. Emma Stone $6.5 million
17. Mila Kunis $6.5 million
18. Natalie Portman $6 million
Why they stopped at 18 is a mystery. If you're going that far why not a top 20? If you missed the Actors list they also did that and unsurprisingly if you have been paying any attention to Hollywood the past 40 years, the men make a lot more.
BIGGEST SURPRISE: Fan Bingbing (who played "Blink" in X-Men Days of Future Past but earns her money from Chinese films and endorsement deals) and now we know how she can afford those trunks and trunks of awesome gowns she brings to Cannes each year! Forbes doesn't go into details about how they "expanded" their survey this year but perhaps we'll see more foreign actresses showing up in the future now that they're thinking globally.
SHE'S ONLY AT #8?: I expected Reese Witherspoon to place higher, especially since she's producing big hits, too, like Gone Girl.
SHE EARNED IT: Scarlett Johansson. Yes, she got on the list with a combo of two action films (Age of Ultron & Lucy) and endorsement deals but she's also the only one of these 18 ladies that won a Tony, was feted in France (where she now lives) and made a film as daring and great as Under the Skin recently. So she wins. Her $10 million-ish salary recently jumped to $17.5 for her next film, the live action adaptation of Ghost in the Shell.
(FWIW Jennifer Lawrence has earned her money, too. Clearly she never sleeps or has dozens of assistants as she is always at events, filming something major, or promoting her movies. Her salary recently jumped to $20 million for the forthcoming sci-fi drama Passengers)
MOST ANNOYING: Jennifer Aniston is always on TV shilling something. How much money exactly does one previously single actor need? Where does the money go? I hope she's running thousands of charities or something, especially after multiple decades of making more than this as a single lady. Shouldn't she maybe lay a little low like maybe once every 3 years? How about right now to soak in her newly wedded bliss with Justin Theroux? Her ubiquity is oppressive. Especially since she never makes good movies.
FALLING OFF THE LIST: Previous editions of this list included Sarah Jessica Parker, Charlize Theron, Kristen Wiig and Katharine Heigl (remember her?). Here's our coverage of the lists from 2013, 2012, and 2011. Oops... I guess we didn't report on the list in 2014.
WHERE IS: Amy Adams? For some reason I thought she'd be here. But I guess Big Eyes didn't exactly print money.
WHO DO YOU THINK WILL HIT THIS LIST WITHIN THE NEXT FEW YEARS: Shailene Woodley? Jessica Chastain? Cate Blanchett? Emily Blunt? June Squibb*? Alicia Vikander? Chloe Moretz?
*just wanted to see if you were actually paying attention. xo, thanks for reading!