Who Should Be TV's Highest-Paid Actress?
Forbes has released its annual list of the highest-paid actresses on television with Tina Fey at the top, with a whopping $13 million last year. And that's cool! We're happy with that. Some of the rest of the list, though, not so much.
Predictably, all of the Desperate Housewives made the list, as did Ellen Pompeo of ABC's other aging hit Grey's Anatomy. And while, sure, those shows are popular and earn lots of money so the actresses should get a cut of that sweet, sweet moola, there are so many other actresses on TV turning in far better performances (I mean, Grey's and Housewives are basically on autopilot at this point, as is high-earner Mariska Hargitay, doing her standard tear-and-frown on SVU) that it just seems like an injustice — a great and terrible injustice! — that they are not paid more. Sure they're paid more than, oh say, most other women on the planet, but in the relative terms of Hollywood, they're not getting a big enough piece of the pie.
Who would be on my list? Well, Anna Gunn on Breaking Bad, Betsy Brandt on Breaking Bad, Pamela Adlon for her brief stints on Louie, Kaitlin Olson for her manically desperate (truly Desperate) work on It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, the increasingly creepy Gretchen Mol on Boardwalk Empire, Emilia Clarke the dragon princess on Games of Thrones, Amy Poehler for TV's best comedic performance on Parks & Recreation, and even though it hasn't aired yet but how can she not be amazing and deserve a billion dollars, Laura Dern on Enlightened.
How about you? Who do you think deserves the big, big bucks? And don't say Kyra Sedgwick.
