Movie Actors Who Were Paid The Biggest Salary Per Words

Johnny Depp is no stranger to a big payday, and his stint on Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland movie in 2010 proved to be a hugely profitable one for the actor. With 661 words of dialogue throughout this telling of the classic tale, Depp earned himself a sweet $66,606 per word for what was believed to be total earnings in the region of $44 million. In terms of pay-per-word, Johnny also had two other movies that just missed out on this list. Compared to the #10 entry of this article – Tom Cruise’s $20,194 for each word of Mission: Impossible II – Depp was paid $19,209 per word for The Tourist, and $14,889 for every word of his stunning performance as the headline act of Burton’s Edward Scissorhands. None of the aforementioned pictures are the movies for which Johnny Depp was paid the most, but they were his most profitable in terms of words-to-cash. But when looking at his total Edward Scissorhands payday of $3 million, that figure’s absolutely blown out of the water by the reported $90 million a piece Depp has made for the five Pirates of the Caribbean movies to date.

April 6, 2022 | 7:16 pm