Stranger Things actor shares how much money he got paid for appearing on Netflix show
An actor who appeared in several episodes of Stranger Things has revealed how much he made from his time on the show.
Some folks reckon it's not the done thing to discuss money and payments for work, but it can be pretty educational and give people a decent idea of where they stand the the world of work.
Some companies actually get their workers to share their salaries, and people can be quite staggered by the differences in the amount of money they get for a job compared to their co-workers.
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Meanwhile, when you're sitting at home watching TV your mind might wander into wondering how much the people you're seeing on screen are actually getting paid to be there.
Fortunately for those curious, actor Tristan Spohn recently talked people through how much he made from his appearance in Stranger Things.
Just to refresh your memory, Tristan played the role of Two in the Netflix show, one of the test subjects at the lab in Hawkins.
In the show he bullied Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and was the strongest of the test subjects besides her.
You probably won't be seeing him in the final season of Stranger Things since he was killed when Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) tore through the lab, with Eleven watching on as Two was held against a wall and had his neck crushed.
Spohn appeared in five episodes of Stranger Things season four, but that wasn't all as in addition to five episodes of Stranger Things, Tristan also appeared in an episode of crime drama FBI which he factored into the calculations.
The actor said that his one 'guest star' role on FBI paid him 'a little more than double' what he was paid for each individual episode of Stranger Things, but this was 'purely because of residuals'.
For six episodes of TV work, and what he estimated to be about three months worth of work, he was paid $85,000 (£66,600), but of course the actual take-home pay was less than the headline figure.
Crunching the numbers, he said he was paid around $15,000 per episode of Stranger Things, while for FBI he was paid $10,000, but made around another $12,000 from residuals in 2021 and 2022.
Of that $85,000 amount, he paid $12,000 of it in taxes, around $8,000 of it to his agency, and once other expenses had been knocked off he was left with around $60,000 (£47,000).
After taxes and expenses he calculated that his five episodes on Stranger Things had made him about $10,000 in take-home pay each.
Not bad for three months work, but as the actor explained that while it sounds like a lot of money 'one really good year' didn't mean you could quit the dayjob just yet.
Then there was a $3,000 fee for joining a union, though Spohn admitted he wasn't actually in the Screen Actor's Guild.
Tristan broke down that there were essentially different levels of pay on TV, and top of the tree was the 'series regular'.
One tier down was a 'recurring' performer, and below them a 'recurring guest star' which is what his five episodes on Stranger Things had him down as.
Spohn said that after his time on Stranger Things he was offered a contract as a series regular on another show where he would have been paid $35,000 (£27,000) per episode, but 'things ended up happening, then the strike ended up happening'.
Topics: Stranger Things, Netflix, Celebrity, Money, TV and Film
Joe Harker