"You show me a pay stub for $72,000, I quit my job right now and work for you."
That memorable line was spoken by Jonah Hill to Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s award-winning The Wolf of Wall Street. The irony of the statement? That’s more than Hill reportedly was paid to appear in the actual movie!
In an interview with Howard Stern, Hill admitted that he was so desperate for the role of lackey/sidekick Donnie Azoff that he took a drastic pay cut for inclusion in Scorsese’s movie.
It paid off for Hill, who earned his second Oscar nomination for the Wolf performance. And Hill is an on-the-record Scorsese disciple, so working with one of this icons likely would have been payment enough. But DiCaprio has done numerous movies with Scorsese, and StatisticBrain claims he was paid $10 million for Wolf.
Listen to the whole Hill interview right here.
Truthfully, I’m shocked that Hill’s in the position where he’d ever HAVE to take a pay cut. He already earned an Oscar nomination for Moneyball, and so you would assume that he could demand top salaries from here on out. At the same time, he has a number of hit movies under his belt, from Superbad, This Is the End and the Jump Street movies, the second of which will be in theaters later this year. But I think it’s comforting to know that he’s willing to throw all of that out just for the opportunity to play a role he craves. Would Will Smith do that? Would Tom Cruise?
Hill isn’t a frontrunner in the Best Supporting Actor (at least, according to Gabe), but he clearly is riding a tremendous wave and is grabbing choice roles as a result. The Oscars will be handed out on March 2. Even if Hill wins, throw him a few bucks. He just might need it.
