Sophie Turner Addresses Kit Harington Making More Money Than She Does on 'Game of Thrones'

Sophie Turner discusses the fact that Kit Harington earns more than she does on Game of Thrones. The actress says she's fine with the disparity.

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  • On the HBO hit Game of Thrones, not all actors earn the same pay. Kit Harington, who plays Jon Snow, earns more per episode than Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa Stark.
  • When asked about the discrepancy in a new interview with Harper's Bazaar UKTurner said she doesn't have a problem with the gap in this case. 
  • The actress cited the extra work and long hours required by Kit's larger storyline in the series as reasonable justifications for the gap.

Game of Thrones will go down in history as a pop culture phenomenon and a huge critical and financial success for HBO. The network has funneled dump trucks full of money into the series over the course of its eight seasons. With a huge ensemble cast, some of those metaphorical dump trucks have been filled with actors' salaries—but not all of the main cast members are paid the same.

When asked about the discrepancy between her salary and that of her onscreen "brother" Kit Harington, Sophie Turner told Harper's Bazaar UK that the issue is "a little tricky."

"Kit got more money than me, but he had a bigger storyline," she explained. "And for the last series, he had something crazy like 70 night shoots, and I didn’t have that many. I was like, 'You know what... you keep that money.'"

It's also worth noting that Game of Thrones pretty famously tiers its cast's salaries and that Kit and Sophie are in different tiers on that scale. The highest paid group includes Emilia Clarke, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Peter Dinklage, Kit Harington, and Lena Headey all of whom have played arguably the biggest roles in the series since the beginning. Sophie and fellow Stark sister Maisie Williams are in the so-called "B" tier and earn less than the five "A" tier actors.

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Kayleigh Roberts
Weekend Editor

Kayleigh Roberts is a freelance writer and editor with more than 10 years of professional experience. Her byline has appeared in Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, ELLE, Harper’s Bazaar, The Atlantic, Allure, Entertainment Weekly, MTV, Bustle, Refinery29, Girls’ Life Magazine, Just Jared, and Tiger Beat, among other publications. She's a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.