Sofia Vergara becomes TV’s highest paid actress of 2014

NEW YORK: 

Colombian actress Sofia Vergara has become the highest paid actress on television for the third year in a row.

According to Forbes magazine, the Modern Family star has held onto her position for the third year running by earning $7 million more than what she had earned for the previous year.

Like last year, Vergara, who earns $325,000 per episode for her performances in Modern Family, outpaced Mariska Hargitay, the Emmy-winning star of NBC’s Law and Order:Special Victims Unit, who came in second with $13 million.

US magazine Forbes has credited the Modern Family stars, continued streak to her “business savvy” nature.

As in addition to her work on TV, Vergara has continued to venture onto the silver screen starring in high profile films such as The Three Stooges, Chef and the soon to be released action comedy Don’t Mess with Texas co-starring Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon.

Apart from that the Colombian star is also the face of several brands such as Diet Pepsi, Cover Girl, AT&T and Head & Shoulders to name a few. These lucrative endorsements have contributed to the bulk of her earnings.

Vergara who recently co-founded the Latin World Entertainment, a talent management and entertainment marketing firm which has quickly grown into a multi-million dollar empire. The company recently teamed up with media website CNET to launch a Spanish language tech news website.

Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting, 28, of CBS’s The Big Bang Theory, came in third, with $11 million. Kaley’s success is mainly due to her performance on TV’s most profitable show The Big Bang Theory. The fact Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting recently renegotiated the terms and conditions of her contract to a much more lucrative deal where she’d be earning $1 million per episode. There is a strong chance that she might be reappearing on the list next year.

The Forbes’s list is determined by estimating the pre-tax earnings of celebrities between June 2013 and June 2014 from the TV work, endorsements, residuals and advertising work, and by talking to agents, managers and lawyers. The estimate does not include management fees and other expenses.

Actress Mindy Kaling, 35, the writer, producer and star of The Mindy Project, on the Fox network, clinched the No 7 spot with $6.5 million. Lena Dunham, the 28-year-old creator and star of the HBO series Girls, made it into the top 10 with earnings of $3.5 million.

Other notable actresses to appear on the list include Julianna Margulies of The Good Wife, Ellen Pompeo of Grey’s Anatomy and Cobie Smulders and Alyson Hannigan of the recently concluded CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother.

An interesting fact is that the top 10 actresses on the 2014 list have made a combined $140 million compared to the $214 million combined earnings of TV’s 10 leading actors.

Others In The List Include:

Mariska Harigtay holds the second position for Law and Order: Special Victims Unit with $13 Million.

Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting for her performance in The Big Bang Theory comes in third with $11 Million.

Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife), Ellen Pompeo (Grey’s Anatomy) and Cobie Smulders (How I Met Your Mother) all tie for fourth place earning $10 Million.

Alyson Hannigan comes in fifth earning $9.5 Million for her role in the sitcom How I Met Your Mother.