Modern Family’s Jesse Tyler Ferguson opened up about not getting paid as much as his “more famous” co-stars during the show’s first season.
On his Dinner’s On Me podcast, Ferguson discussed his early salary on the show with Bridgerton star Golda Rosheuvel, who plays the hit Netflix series’ Queen Charlotte.
“That is a crazy thing about the first year of Modern Family for me,” Ferguson said, “Because I wasn’t someone who was well-known and we all were being paid different prices because, you know, certain people were very famous and certain people were not.”
Ferguson starred as Mitchell Pritchett in the sitcom alongside Ed O’Neill, Sofía Vergara, Julie Bowen, Ty Burrell, and Eric Stonestreet. O’Neill was already a household name when Modern Family premiered, following his run as Al Bundy on Married... with Children, and thus made nearly six figures an episode starting with Season 1.
“I wasn’t getting paid as much as other actors,” Ferguson continued, “But yet we were all on this thing together that was this juggernaut that people were recognizing us from.”
Being recognized changed the way he had to get around, he explained. “I found things like having to… I wasn’t always able to afford what I needed to keep myself safe in that first year.”
According to Variety, aside from O’Neill, the adult cast members made between $20,000 and $60,000 an episode. As the series progressed, it became the highest-rated comedy since Friends and Will & Grace, and TV’s No. 1 scripted series among younger viewers, which led to staggering pay increases season over season.
By the third season, Ferguson was paid “in the $65,000-an-episode range,” according to The Hollywood Reporter, and by the 11th and last season, was reportedly making $500,000 per episode.
“When renegotiations came up, and I was feeling a little bit guilty about asking for more,” he said on Dinner’s On Me, until he found his nerve. “I was like, ‘No, I deserve this because what the job is now is requiring different things from me and I need to be able to support that.’”
As for Rosheuvel, who has starred in Bridgerton for all four seasons since 2020 and the limited series spinoff Queen Charlotte, she chafes against the limitations of her newfound fame but finds some solace in her salary. Unverified reports place the Bridgerton cast’s salaries between $50,000 and $250,000 an episode. “We were chased in Barcelona by a few girls,” Rosheuvel revealed, recalling being hounded by fans while on vacation with her wife.
“That was really weird and scary, and we were on holiday. It was just bizarre,” she said. “There’s that kind of stuff, and I get it. I really do get it— but it’s like, well, we get paid enough to be able to keep ourselves safe. And unfortunately that has to happen.”
