‘This Is Us’ Stars Score $4.5 Million Payout for Single Season

The cast of NBC‘s drama This Is Us reportedly make a hefty per-episode salary, which sees them pocketing $4.5 million in a single season.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the five core cast members for the popular series scored massive pay raises after renegotiating their contracts with producer 20th Century Fox Television ahead of the series’ third season, which premiered Tuesday night.

Stars Milo Ventimiglia (Jack Pearson), Mandy Moore (Rebecca Pearson), Chrissy Metz (Kate Pearson, Sterling K. Brown (Randall Pearson), and Justin Hartley (Kevin Pearson) will see a $250,000 per-episode salary in the 18-episode third season, meaning that by the time the season ends, each will have earned $4.5 million. It is unclear if co-stars Susan Kelechi Watson (Beth) and Chris Sullivan (Toby) were also included in the renegotiations.

Although it is not known how much the stars were set to make prior to the negotiations, Ventimiglia started the series making $115,000 per episode, Hartley made $75,000, and Metz’s per-episode salary came in at $40,000 per episode.

“I think some people got some details wrong in the news, but I think when you stay present and you stay grateful, you continue to manifest really beautiful things,” Metz, who infamously only had 81 cents in her bank account when she landed the role of Kate, told PEOPLE of the recent raises. “I’m continually grateful. My life is completely changed in many, many ways!”

It is not all that uncommon for actors to renegotiate their salaries heading into the third season of a breakout hit. The core eight cast members of Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why recently renegotiated their contracts, leading to series lead Dylan Minnette’s per-episode salary being bumped to $200,000 and the salaries of the other actors increasing to $135,000 per episode.

Those pay increases were partially credited to the recent increases of the Stranger Things cast, whose young actors scored a $250,000 per episode salary and adult actors received a bump up to $300,000 per episode following a successful first two seasons.

Still, those salaries hardly compare to those of The Big Bang Theory, whose seven stars earn $900,000 per episode.

While This Is Us cannot boast being broadcast’s No. 1 comedy like The Big Bang Theory can, it can boast being broadcast’s No. 1 drama for the 2017-2018 television season, with an average rating of 5.4 in the key 18-to-49 demographic. While its third season premiered to lower ratings than the previous two season premieres, managing to rake in a 2.9 in the key demo, it still landed the spot as being Tuesday night’s highest-rated show.

This Is Us airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.