The Stunning Amount Milo Ventimiglia Makes Per Episode On This Is Us

When "This Is Us" premiered on NBC in 2016, it quickly became one of the most talked about shows on television. Starring Mandy Moore and Milo Ventimiglia, the show takes viewers on a journey of life and loss through the eyes of the Pearson family. As series creator Dan Fogelman once explained, the hit show — which also stars Chrissy Metz, Sterling K. Brown, Justin Hartley, Susan Kelechi Watson, and Chris Sullivan — is so successful in part because of its "storytelling." As viewers know, the series is told from different time periods, evoking different emotions and struggles from the Pearson family.

"There is a form of storytelling — a tone — that lives in between the laugh and the [heavy] emotion," he said. "If you hit that tone right, it can be everything."

The success of "This Is Us" has turned several cast members into household names — and has turned household names into stars you can talk about with multiple generations. One such example is Milo Ventimiglia, who previously worked his way up the Hollywood ranks as bad boy Jess on "Gilmore Girls" and on the 2006 sci-fi series "Heroes." The role of Jack Pearson, though, has changed Ventimiglia's life — and made him a whole lot richer.

Milo Ventimiglia's performance as the loving-but-troubled Jack Pearson on "This Is Us" has captured audiences worldwide — and NBC has paid him the big bucks to keep him on the show for all six seasons. Us Weekly reports that Ventimiglia has seen his salary increase season-by-season since 2016. He initially earned $85,000 per episode in Season 1, before getting a pay raise of $115,000 in Season 2. NBC further upped his salary in Season 3 to $250,000 per episode, which became the base of his salary — until a few months ago.

In November, Ventimiglia — along with the rest of his cast mates — negotiated for a big pay raise ahead of the final sixth season, which is set to conclude next spring. Deadline reports that NBC and 20th Century Television agreed to a "$2 million cash bonus" to Ventimiglia and the other original six cast members.

While Ventimiglia has earned a lot on the show, he is, like many of his cast mates, ready for "This Is Us" to end in 2022.

Fans may be heartbroken about "This Is Us" ending next year after six seasons on air, but Milo Ventimiglia has come to terms with it. During an interview with Haute Living Magazine in May, Ventimiglia spoke about the problems of dragging on a TV show for the sake of ratings.

"Dan Fogelman, our show's creator, always imagined fewer episodes than that, but given the broadcast schedule, [the network] wants 20-some episodes a year, as many seasons as you can get," he shared. "But with that, creatively, we run into problems." He added that because of the time jumps, it's hard for the characters to have a consistent storyline. "I mean, my character is dead, [and because of the timeline changes] the younger actors who play our kids are growing up and bumping against the ages of the actors who play the same characters as teenagers," Ventimiglia explained. "So it's kind of like, well, which one do you choose?" He further added that these "roadblocks" — "We can't make growing 13- and 14-year-old kids look like they're 8 again," he explained — is just a way of life, and that he's content with it all. "Time marches on, and we really can't hold it back," he said. Spoken like Jack Pearson himself.