Would you take a pay cut so your friends could get a raise? It's one of those things that's definitely easier said than done. The cast of "The Big Bang Theory" is doing just that it seems. The shows five leads will be voluntarily decreasing their salaries for two of their female co-stars. The Huffington Post reports that Jim Parsons, Johnny Galecki, Kaley Cuoco, Kunal Nayyar and Simon Helberg have all agreed to dock $100,000 worth of pay cuts from their $1 million per episode salaries for the next 2 seasons of the show. They did this so their long time cast mates Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch can get raises.
Bailik and Rauch currently make about $200,000 an episode, which is significantly less than their co-stars. With the money from their co-stars, however, the two actresses could each make around $450,000 per episode. While this is definitely a big raise, Deadline reports that they may actually try to negotiate their contracts to make the same amount as the rest of the cast.
Bailik has been nominated for four Emmy nominations for her role as Amy, so she definitely has some good will going into her negotiations. It will be interesting to see who these contract negotiations play out. Either way, though, these cast mates must super tight IRL and we love that.