Who are the Highest Earning Men in Hollywood?

Waiting for payday? Want to read about incredibly wealthy men?

The Forbes List Of Top Earning Actors is out and Robert Downey Jr topped the poll again! The Iron Man and Avengers actor took home $75 million from June 2013 to June 2014. Talk about incredible. We love RDJ though so the overwhelming jealousy is being kept in check. As Tony Stark he basically runs the Hollywood juggernaut that is the Marvel movie factory and has helped the studio amass $4 billion at the box office. However this career high was almost never his after a bout of personal battles in the nineties and noughties threatened to end his career.

In the nineties RDJ was an indie darling. His performance in the 1992 biopic Chaplin drew critical accalim and landed him an Oscar nomination. In 1996 his personal life became tabloid fodder and the next five years of his life was blighted by drug arrests and short prison sentences. During the latter part of this period his career looked to have recovered and he joined the cast of Ally McBeal, playing one of the eponymous lawyer’s love interests in a role that garnered him a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. When he was found walking around LA is a disordered state and arrested, the show’s producers fired him.

In the early noughties with the help of a court-mandated rehab programme he overcame his demons and worked for under the radar artists such as Sam Taylor-Wood (now Sam Taylor-Johnson) and he focused on music production. It was the nearly forgotton Gothika in 2003 which marked the turning point in his life. While the movie was deemed a critical and financial flop, Downey Jr met Susan Levin, a producer who would become his wife and engineer his comeback. In 2007 he was cast as Iron Man and the rest is Number 1 on the Forbes List Of Top Earning Actors.

Other top earners in this year’s list include Dwayne Johnson AKA the artist formerly known as The Rock at number two, who earned $52 million last year due to his involvment with the Fast and Furious franchise. In third place, Bradley Cooper has been busy starring in everything and netted $46 million for his trouble. Leonardo DiCaprio is in fourth place with $39 million followed by Chris Hemsworth, Liam Neeson and Ben Affleck in fifth, sixth and seventh place respectively. Rounding up the list are Christian Bale, Will Smith and Mark Wahlberg. We’re sure none of them feel that hitting the low thirty millions is anything to be sniffed at.

Here’s the list in full:

1. Robert Downey Jr – $75m
2. Dwayne Johnson – $52m
3. Bradley Cooper – $46m
4. Leonardo DiCaprio – $39m
5. Chris Hemsworth – $37m
6. Liam Neeson -?$36m
7. Ben Affleck – $35m
8. Christian Bale – $35m
9. Will Smith – $32m
10. Mark Wahlberg – $32m

And to close: here’s a video of Robert Downey Jr. singing on Ally McBeal where Sting joins him on stage to sing Every Breath You Take. Remember the after-work bar in Ally McBeal that the neurotic lawyers lived in? It had a more star-studded line-up than Longitude.

Jeanne Sutton @jeannedesutun