There is no verified top-ten ranking of actors by total net worth established here for 2019. The closest defensible answer is Forbes’s ranking of the highest-paid actors, based on estimated pretax earnings from June 1, 2018, through June 1, 2019. That measures income during one year—not the actors’ accumulated wealth.
Forbes’s 10 highest-paid actors of 2019
Forbes published its ranking on August 26, 2019. The amounts below are its estimates of each actor’s earnings during the same 12-month period, in U.S. dollars. Because two actors tied for sixth, the ranking has ten people but no seventh-place entry.
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| Rank | Actor | Estimated earnings |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dwayne Johnson | $89.4 million |
| 2 | Chris Hemsworth | $76.4 million |
| 3 | Robert Downey Jr. | $66 million |
| 4 | Akshay Kumar | $65 million |
| 5 | Jackie Chan | $58 million |
| 6 (tie) | Adam Sandler | $57 million |
| 6 (tie) | Bradley Cooper | $57 million |
| 8 | Chris Evans | $43.5 million |
| 9 | Paul Rudd | $41 million |
| 10 | Will Smith | $35 million |
Forbes’s 2019 list says its estimates drew on Nielsen, ComScore, Box Office Mojo, IMDb, and interviews with industry insiders. The figures are pretax and exclude fees for agents, managers, and lawyers, which Forbes describes as generally 10%, 15%, and 5%, respectively. They are estimates, not audited take-home pay.
What the ranking says—and what it does not
The ranking compares estimated earnings within a defined period. It does not show how much an actor owned at the end of that year, account for liabilities, or establish a ranking by total net worth. A person’s income in one year cannot, on its own, establish the size of their accumulated assets.
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Forbes reported that Dwayne Johnson’s earnings included film compensation, television pay, and royalties connected to an Under Armour line of clothing, shoes, and headphones. The variety of income sources helps explain how the list captures more than salaries from acting roles, but the ranking still measures earnings for its stated period.
How major film deals contributed
Forbes’s 2019 article reported that Johnson could collect an upfront salary of up to $23.5 million for the then-forthcoming Jumanji: The Next Level, plus up to 15% of the “pool” from some franchise films. Those are historical terms reported in 2019, not current rates.
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For Avengers: Endgame, Forbes reported that Robert Downey Jr. received $20 million upfront and nearly 8% of the pool, estimating his compensation for the film at about $55 million. The article reported the movie’s gross as $2.796 billion. Forbes also said that Downey, Chris Hemsworth, Bradley Cooper, and Paul Rudd—the four performers from the film on its 2019 top-earner list—earned a combined $284 million, most of it from the franchise. These are article-era figures and estimates, not a measure of net worth.
Forbes quoted entertainment lawyer David Chidekel of Early Sullivan Wright Gizer & McRae on the leverage of performers in large studio productions: “Celebrities such as Downey and (Scarlett) Johansson currently have extreme leverage to demand enormous compensation packages from studios investing hundreds of millions of dollars in making tent-pole films, such as The Avengers series.”
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Johnson topped Forbes’s 2019 earnings list at an estimated $89.4 million. In a 2018 interview with Forbes, he described his approach to choosing projects: “It has to be audience first. What does the audience want, and what is the best scenario that we can create that will send them home happy?” The quote is about his audience-focused work, not a claim about his personal wealth.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Was there a verified 2019 list of the richest actors?
A comparable, contemporaneous top-ten ranking by total net worth is not established here. Net-worth estimates require a different measure from annual earnings and should not be inferred from this Forbes list. Accordingly, the table answers who Forbes identified as the highest-paid actors over the period—not who definitively had the greatest total wealth in 2019.
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