Jonah Hill Made Just $60,000 For ‘Wolf Of Wall Street’ Role

Paramount Pictures

Jonah Hill revealed yesterday that his paycheck for co-starring in The Wolf of Wall Street was a lot less than his character would have accepted. He wanted to work alongside director Martin Scorsese so badly that he was willing to take just $60,000, the bare minimum allowed by the Screen Actors Guild.

And he was so excited to play Donnie Azoff that he was more than happy to take the pay cut. In fact, he couldn’t sign the contract fast enough, for fear the movie’s producers would change their minds and cast someone else, according to E.

They gave me the lowest amount of money possible, that was their offer,” Hill said on Howard Stern’s radio show yesterday. “I said, ‘I will sign the paper tonight. Fax me the papers tonight.’ I want to sign them tonight before they change their mind. I said I want to sign them before I go to sleep tonight so they legally can’t change their mind.”

His take-home pay was something more commonly seen outside Hollywood. For nearly seven months of work, he received a paycheck of $60,000, before commissions and taxes, according to US Magazine.

The star has no regrets about taking the low pay. “I would sell my house and give him all my money to work for [Scorsese]… I would have done anything in the world. I would do it again in a second.”

Now he’s even more thrilled about landing the part, which earned him a recent Oscar nomination. He said to Stern, “I got to fucking be in a Martin Scorsese movie and I just got nominated for an Oscar… I’m in shock. I’m totally in shock.”