- Dax Shepard says he stopped trying to find out how much his costars made when he starred in “Parenthood.”
- That way, he could continue to enjoy going to work, Shepard said on his “Armchair Expert” podcast.
- He said he was aware he was among the lowest-paid actors on the show.
Dax Shepard may be a popular podcaster now, but he said there was a time when he wasn’t making much money as an actor.
During Monday’s episode of his “Armchair Expert” podcast featuring his former “Parenthood” costar Lauren Graham, Shepard spoke about how being on the show changed the way he thought about pay transparency.
“Every job I had ever had in my life prior to ‘Parenthood,’ I made a point to find out what everyone was making,” Shepard told Graham and his cohost, actor Monica Padman. “I’d always figure it out — either a conversation where I get it out of them or backchannel through an agent.”
But when Shepard landed the role of Crosby Braverman in the NBC series, which ran for six seasons from 2010 to 2015, he decided to stop doing that. Because of that choice, Shepard said he was “so happy” working on the show.
“If I find out that Jabbar is making twice as much as me, how can I enjoy going to work?” he said, referring to Jabbar Trussell, his onscreen son played by actor Tyree Brown.
“That was the first time I ever broke that habit and boy, was that a blessing,” he said.
Earlier in the podcast, Shepard said that he was among the lowest-paid of the show’s actors.
Earlier comments about money
During a 2021 appearance on the “Tell Me With Ellen Pompeo” podcast, Shepard said that he was sometimes bothered by social media comments that he made less money than his wife, Kristen Bell.
“That shouldn’t bother me at all,” Shepard told host Ellen Pompeo. “I know how much I make. It’s a lot.”
“Yet, two days later, I’ll be hearing that f— tweet in my head. ‘Cause that person set out to emasculate me,” he said.
The Wall Street Journal reported that in July 2024, Shepard signed an $80 million podcasting deal with Amazon’s Wondery platform. As part of the deal, Wondery and Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” team would develop and produce two new podcasts and one livestream a year.
In the past few years, a growing number of states, including New York, California, and Nevada, have passed pay transparency measures that force companies to disclose compensation levels.
Some employers are hesitant to share salary information upfront since it gives them an advantage during pay negotiations with candidates, workplace expert and author Jenn Lim previously told Business Insider.
Not disclosing immediately gives the companies “more wiggle room on the back end,” Lim said in 2022. “It’s a negotiation point.”
If companies are hoping to appeal to Gen Z job seekers, pay transparency is a must: A 2022 Indeed survey of 2,000 people aged 16 to 26 years found that 85% of respondents said that it’s important or very important for a job listing to include salary information.
Representatives for Shepard and NBC did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent by BI outside regular hours.
