Which 5 ‘Game of Thrones’ Stars Are Paid The Most? Cast Reportedly Banking $2 Million Per Episode

“Game of Thrones” is wildly popular among viewers and, as such, the cast is raking in a pretty penny for appearing in the HBO original series. While everyone on the show boasts an impressive salary, some are being paid more than others.

According to Metro UK, the top five cast members for the HBO series are being paid £2 million (more than $2 million) per episode, thanks to bonus clauses that were added to their contracts after an initial increase to a reported £890,000 ($1,142,137) per episode in November 2016 for seasons 7 and 8. Those five cast members include Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen), Kit Harington (Jon Snow), Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister), Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister) and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister).

Salary negotiations for the final two seasons of “Game of Thrones” have been ongoing for quite some time. In June 2016, Deadline reported that Clarke, Harington, Headey, Dinklage and Coster-Waldau were hoping to be paid upwards to $500,000 per episode for both seasons. Their desired salary would have been a $200,000 increase from what they were reportedly being paid at the time.

Deadline reported that HBO and the “Game of Thrones” stars negotiated their $300,000 per episode salary in 2014. At the time, they were heading into Season 5. This new increase would lock them in for Season 7 and Season 8, which was uncertain at the time, but did not mean they would be spared from death on the show.

The pay raise excludes stars like Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams and Natalie Dormer, who has since been killed off the show. The Hollywood Reporter claimed that the aforementioned stars had not yet begun negotiating a raise of their own. No speculation as to how much Turner, Williams and Dormer were being paid was available, though it was thought to be significantly lower than Clarke, Harington, Headey, Dinklage and Coster-Waldau.

It has been reported that the “Game of Thrones” cast was broken into pay grade tiers. A 2014 article from Wetpaint claimed that Turner, Williams and Dormer were in the lowest tier, making just $55,000 per episode in Season 5.