Actress Christine Taylor says her salary on Nickelodeon’s “Hey Dude” was smaller than her castmates remembered, even though the show made all of them into recognizable young faces.
Taylor played Melody Hanson on the western comedy series from 1989 to 1991. Speaking on Natanya Ross’s podcast “We’re Still Here, Babe” on Wednesday, Taylor said she was earning about $3,500 per episode by the final season, not the $5,000 figure her fellow cast members believed they had made.
“By the time ‘Hey Dude’ ended, we had this discussion amongst our castmates, and everyone seemed to think [that] by the last season, we were making $5,000 an episode,” Taylor said. “No, we were making $3,500 an episode, I’m pretty sure, because they would bump us up $500 every season.”
Taylor said the entire cast was paid the same rate, but the group had somehow settled on the wrong number in their collective memory.
“Everyone in their brain was like, ‘$5,000.’ I was like, ‘No way, no way. That would have … no, it did not happen,'” she recalled.
Taylor said she was careful with her earnings at the time, budgeting closely, doing her own laundry at laundromats and watching her spending as a young actress in Los Angeles. She credited her family with providing financial support as she started out.
She went on to appear in “Saved by the Bell,” “Blossom” and “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” before landing her breakout role as Marcia Brady in 1995’s “The Brady Bunch Movie.” Taylor said she was asked to lose 10 pounds for that part.
“Of course, I was embarrassed when that ask came my way,” she said, adding that the request reflected attitudes of the 1990s and “would never happen today.”
Taylor later co-starred with her husband, Ben Stiller, in “Zoolander” and “DodgeBall.” The couple married in 2000, separated in 2017 and later reconciled. They have two children, Ella and Quinlin.
Other actors have described similar gaps
Taylor’s account adds to a string of recent stories from former television stars describing pay and residuals far different from what fans might assume comes with a hit show.
“The Sopranos” actress Drea de Matteo has said she turned to OnlyFans after facing financial trouble, including a lien on her home. On Jamie Kennedy’s podcast, she said she paid off a $75,000 lien within 75 minutes of posting a bikini photo and has sometimes earned around $100,000 a month on the platform.
“I was not — people think I’m made of f—ing money,” de Matteo said. “Everyone sees me coming, they’re like, ‘Here comes that rich b—- from The Sopranos.’ And it’s like, no, I’m not at all.”
“Married… with Children” star Ted McGinley told Page Six he holds on to a “whole stack” of residual checks worth one cent each from his decades-long career, which also included “Happy Days” and “The Love Boat.” He said the checks keep shrinking over time and estimated he has about $2 worth sitting uncashed, though he can’t bring himself to throw them away.
