One Friends Actor Who Was Down To $11 Before Getting $1M Per Episode
He didn’t know what was coming.
If there is one thing all actors know, it is that hope is never enough to make it in Hollywood. Of course, it is important to keep your morals as high as possible, but being an actor is hard enough to make anyone doubt their decision.
Unless you already have a name and all the connections in the industry, you can easily starve yourself looking for a gig.
That is almost literally what happened to Matt LeBlanc before he landed the breakout role of Joey Tribbianni on the iconic '90s sitcom Friends. Although the young actor was doing his best to stay afloat, he found himself with just $11 in his pocket and no food to eat just before he got the call.
LeBlanc opened up about his struggles years later in an interview with Conan O'Brien for the late-night show Conan on TBS:
“You know when you think like ‘I have a little money on my bank account, so I can hold out till the net gig’? I was down to $11. Now, that’s holding out too long. Because even if I said at that point ‘Alright, I’m going to get, like, a waiter job’, by the time that $11 went out wouldn’t that be before the first paycheck on that job? I would’ve starved.”
Luckily, all the struggles didn't stop the actor from trying, and he got the role of Joey, who became one of the most popular characters on the show. Aside from the popularity and many doors opened, the role also granted the actor quite a bit of money, as in the later seasons of the show it was reported that all members of the cast were paid $1 million per episode.
Not sure if young Matt LeBlanc, who was willing to wait tables or do any other job just to get some food, could ever dream of such success, but fate has its own surprising ways. Today, with a reported net worth of $85 million, the actor must be very thankful that he did not leave the industry too early and gave acting another chance.
If you want to see a comedic performance worth millions of dollars, you can stream all seasons of Friends on Netflix or MAX.
Source: Team Coco YouTube