The Friends Cast Refused to Be Split Up. They Left Making $1 Million Per Episode.

When Friends premiered in September 1994, each of the six main cast members earned $22,500 per episode. They were unknowns. The salary reflected that.

By Season 2, Warner Bros. noticed that Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer were drawing more attention than the rest. The studio began quietly paying them more, approximately $40,000 per episode, while the other four stayed around $20,000.

The Ultimatum

The cast found out. And they did something Hollywood had almost never seen: they refused to negotiate individually. All six, or none.

Aniston and Schwimmer voluntarily took pay cuts so all six could earn equally. The cast threatened to not show up for filming if the studio didn't agree.

Warner Bros. blinked. Equal pay for all six: $75,000 per episode.

The Climb

The salaries kept rising together. $85,000 in Season 4. $100,000 in Season 5. $125,000 in Season 6. By Seasons 7 and 8, each cast member earned $750,000 per episode.

For the final two seasons, the number hit $1 million per episode per actor. Aniston, Cox, and Kudrow became the highest-paid women in television history at that point. The studio was paying $6 million per episode in cast salaries alone.

The Afterlife

Friends ended in 2004. The show never stopped earning. It generates roughly $1 billion per year in syndication revenue for Warner Bros. Each of the six cast members still receives approximately $20 million per year in residuals.

Warner Bros. pays six people $120 million a year combined for a show nobody has filmed a single frame of in over two decades.