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Dwayne Johnson Is The World’s Highest Paid Actor — The Rock Leads Forbes’ List With $64.5 Million Last Year

By Shaunee Flowers
Published on: 07:02 PST, Aug 27, 2016

Can you smell what The Rock is cooking? Apparently, everyone else can because Dwayne Johnson has been named the highest paid actor by Forbes after pulling in a whopping $64.5 million during their year running from June 2015 through June 2016. Now Johnson is balling while still starring on HBO’s Ballers, and it doesn’t look like his career is slowing down anytime soon.

On top of currently being the highest paid actor, Dwayne Johnson is also known as the most successful professional wrestler to make the crossover into acting. This puts The Rock ahead of Iron Man this year on the Forbes‘ list. Last year, Robert Downey Jr. topped the list of Hollywood’s elite and now comes in eighth place with a still eye-popping $33 million earned.

Johnson more than doubled his earnings in the current year according to the Forbes report. His recent financial success has been credited to his success with his roles in the Fast & Furious movies as well as San Andreas. The Rock isn’t slowing down anytime soon either. He is expected to have a place on the list of highest paid actors again next year, due in part to his participation in the upcoming Disney animated feature Moana.

The Rock raked in $64.5 million during the 2015-16 fiscal year from upfront payments from projects like Furious 8 and Central Intelligence, as well as the upcoming Baywatch movie that he stars in alongside Zac Efron.

Jackie Chan came in as the second highest paid actor due to his many projects in China with a whopping $61 million. Matt Damon was third with $55 million during the same time period, much of that paycheck due to the overwhelming success of The Martian.

Tom Cruise came in fourth place on the income list. Cruise pulled in $53 million due to his most recent Mission Impossible release as well as a slew of projects the veteran actor has on board right now.

Johnny Depp may have been the centerpiece for a lot of controversy in the past year with accusations of spousal abuse and the Amber Heard divorce. Even so, Depp was able to bank $48 million during the qualifying period. This is a huge win for the Pirates of the Caribbean actor who managed to pay Heard $7 million during their divorce.

The most recent Forbes highest paid actor list not only marked Dwayne Johnson as a pay leader during the 2015-16 roundup. It also proved yet again that women in Hollywood are still making much less than their male counterparts.

Jennifer Lawrence led the pack again this year for the highest paid actress. Screencrush pointed out that while Lawrence raked in a whopping $46 million, this is significantly less than many who have made it on the highest paid actor list.

Only four women on the list of highest paid actresses even pulled in over $20 million during the year compared to eight actors on the men’s side who earned significantly more. Another huge discrepancy between the highest paid men and women seems to be age. All of the highest earners on the men’s side are over 40-years old. Meanwhile, the women tend to be much younger, with only Melissa McCarthy, Amy Adams, Jennifer Aniston, Julia Roberts, and Charlize Theron in the same age bracket for the women.

Dwayne Johnson has commented since being named to the Forbes‘ highest paid actors list. Somehow, in all his popularity and success, The Rock has remained humble as seen in his Instagram response to the news that he has become the highest paid actor in the world. Alongside a picture pronouncing him as the winner of one of Forbes‘ most prestigious lists he wrote, “Somewhere along this crazy road I learned (often times the hard way) the most important things I can do is be authentic, trust my gut, be the hardest worker in the room, celebrate the mistakes, be a grateful man and always remember that it’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”

[Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images]

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