Pompeo, who has performed Gray Sloan Memorial Hospital Dr. Meredith Gray for the reason that present’s debut, made headlines when she negotiated an enormous $20million a 12 months contract in 2017 to proceed the position, making her certainly one of tv’s highest paid actresses.
Nonetheless, that wasn’t at all times the case. When Gray’s Anatomy debuted in 2005, Dempsey, who portrayed Dr. Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd, was already a widely known actor with a longtime Hollywood resume.
Pompeo was comparatively new to the business, and their paychecks mirrored that. Dempsey’s preliminary wage was $350,000 per episode, whereas Pompeo was pocketing round $200,000 per episode.
It is apparently nonetheless a sore topic for Pompeo, who lately informed the Name Me Daddy podcast: “Being that I used to be the namesake of the present, I deserved the identical (pay) and that was more durable to get.”
The star mentioned she did not maintain it in opposition to Dempsey, explaining: “He was an even bigger star than I used to be at that time. Everybody knew who he was, so he did deserve the cash.
“I wasn’t salty about him getting what he acquired, I used to be salty that they didn’t worth me as a lot as they valued him, and so they by no means will.”