The anecdote has reached mythic proportions: Before Chrissy Metz, 38, made it in television, she lived with six women in a cramped two-bedroom apartment. She had to borrow gas money to get to auditions and lived on a steady diet of dollar-store ramen noodles, all while racking up massive debt (nearly $12,000 worth.) When fate at last intervened, with Metz landing the role of Kate Pearson on This Is Us, she had 81 cents in her bank account.
But while the gig was a personal game-changer, Metz was the rookie on set. In the first and second seasons, she made much, much less than her cast mates. While she earned $40,000 per episode, veteran actor Milo Ventimiglia took home $115,000, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Metz didn’t make a fuss. After all, even earning a steady paycheck as an actress had seemed so inconceivable. She’d grown up watching her mom skip meals. Before she landed This Is Us, she collected unemployment checks. And even now, she’s one of the few plus-size women with a leading role on television. Metz felt fortunate just to have a seat at the table. “For the first two years, I thought, ‘Oh I should just be grateful,’” Metz tells Glamour. “But then I realized, ‘I think I’ve done ok, and now it’s time [to negotiate].’”
After the second season of This Is Us, with two Golden Globe nominations under her belt (and the collective chorus of women who’ve stood up to demand more in here ear), Metz decided she was done just being grateful. “It was everything, collectively,” she says. “Our audience’s [support], other women standing up for themselves, and just feeling like, ‘Ok, I’ve been recognized for the work that I’ve done—not entitled, but recognized, and maybe it’s ok [to ask].’”
With the tremendous success of This Is Us—it’s the biggest drama on broadcast TV—Metz’s cast mates also came to the conclusion that it was time to revisit their contracts. But this time, the beloved Pearson clan banded together. Now Ventimiglia, Mandy Moore, Sterling K. Brown, Justin Hartley, and Metz receive identical checks. What does equal pay mean to Metz? A cool $250,000 per episode, which amounts to $4.5 million per season, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Metz credits her co-workers for the tenor of the process: “We all understood where everyone was coming from. It felt really respectful and professional and nice to know that if I need to, I could do it again.”
But the newfound zeros at the end of Metz’s paycheck haven’t changed her financial philosophy. She doesn’t have to reach too far back in her memories to recall what it felt like not to be able to afford rent, let alone a new pair of shoes. Lately, she’s trying to feel comfortable living in a “gray area” in relation to her wealth. “It’s about not being so tight that you’re not enjoying what you worked really hard for, but also not spending all of it just because you have it,” she says. “It’s sitting in that gray area of like, well, this is what I’ve learned from my past experiences, my parents, and this is what I’m going to have to do in order to have a different life.” For Metz, this means evaluating her purchases. While she’s reluctant to spend a lot on more disposable items, like clothes, Metz has built a beautiful home for herself—and fills it with the kind investment furniture she never had as a child.