Angelina Jolie Tops Our List Of Hollywood's Highest-Paid Actresses

 

Angelina Jolie

$33 million
Never one to shy away from controversy, Jolie recently shared with the world that she had undergone a voluntary double mastectomy because she carries a gene that puts her at a high risk for breast cancer. Her revelation sparked plenty of debate and showed again why Jolie is one of the most powerful women in Hollywood. It also explained her recent time out of the limelight but she's back in full force now with a big payday under her belt for Maleficent, Disney's new spin on the Sleeping Beauty story.

In the interim, Jolie wrote and directed her first film, the Bosnian War movie In The Land of Blood and Honey, and privately dealt with a major health issue. After finding out that she was a carrier of the BRCA1 gene, Jolie opted to have a double mastectomy.

Jolie probably could have kept her decision a secret. Somehow, the celebrity press never caught on to why the star was suddenly out of the public eye.
Instead, she wrote an op-ed in the New York Times about why she decided to have the mastectomy. The piece was honest, controversial and very brave.
Hollywood hasn’t shied away from Jolie. She’s still one of the few actresses who can demand a paycheck north of $15 million for the right movie — like Disney’s retelling of the old Sleeping Beauty story, Maleficent. The film, which hits theaters next summer, marks Jolie’s return to blockbusters and big money. Jolie tops our list of Hollywood’s Top-Earning Actresses with an estimated $33 million in earnings between June 2012 and June 2013.
That’s $13 million more than Jolie earned last year and $9 million more than the second-ranked actress on our list, Jennifer Lawrence. Hollywood’s new It Girl had a huge year in 2012. Not only did she win the Best Actress Oscar for Silver Linings Playbook, she helped the first movie in The Hunger Games franchise  earn $690 million on a budget of $80 million. While Lawrence was paid under $1 million to appear in the first film, Lionsgate was more than happy to bump up her pay for Catching Fire, which hits theaters in November. She’ll also co-star in the next X-Men film, Days of Future Past, in which she plays a young Mystique.
Kristen Stewart, who topped the list last year with $34.5 million, ranks third this time around with $22 million. We credited Stewart with her upfront pay on Snow While and the Huntsman last year. Stewart has appeared on our Celebrity 100 list four times but this could be her last year. With the Twilight series finished, Stewart’s biggest income source is drying up. For now, Stewart seems happy to do smaller films like the recent On the Road. Based on Jack Kerouac’s famous book, it only grossed $8.7 million at the box office. She’ll have to find another successful franchise if her earnings are going to shoot back up again to Twilight levels.
To compile our list we talked to agents, managers and other in-the-know folks to estimate entertainment-related revenue for each celebrity between June 2012 and June 2013. We did not deduct for taxes, agent fees or any of the other costs of being a celebrity.
In fourth place this year: Jennifer Aniston with $20 million. Thanks to Friends, Aniston never really needs to work again. That freedom has allowed her to work in lower-budget comedies that seem to appeal more to her sense of fun than any profit motive. Her next movie is We’re the Millers. The comedy, which cost an estimated $30 million to make, is about a pot dealer who puts together a fake family to move a large shipment of marijuana from Mexico to the U.S.
Rounding out the top five is Emma Stone. The young actress, who debuted on the Celebrity 100 this year, earned an estimated $16 million between June 2012 and June 2013.