Rebel Wilson reveals pay bump from $3,500 for Bridesmaids to $10m for Pitch Perfect 3

Actor’s memoir Rebel Rising makes waves with candid revelations about career and co-actors

Rebel Wilson went from being paid $3,500 for her first film Bridesmaids to $10m for Pitch Perfect 3, she writes in her memoir which is due to hit the bookshelves on Thursday.

The 44-year-old actor describes moving from Australia to the US, signing with agents at William Morris Endeavor, and booking Bridesmaids soon after.

She calls the comedy, starring Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne, and Melissa McCarthy, her “first opportunity in Hollywood that changed the trajectory of my whole career”.

The pay for Bridesmaids “didn’t matter” to her, Wilson writes in Rebel Rising, noting that it was enough to pay her dues to join the SAG-AFTRA union and continue working in Hollywood.

“The experience was everything!”

Two weeks after Bridesmaids premiered, Wilson says she booked six films, one of which was Pitch Perfect. “Boy, did that movie pay dividends!”

In an interview with The New York Times, Wilson recalls how the success of the Pitch Perfect films and the popularity of her character “Fat Amy” allowed her to negotiate for a higher salary than what was initially offered.

“Universal Studios are incredible, but did they make a ton of money from the Pitch Perfect movies? Yes.”

“So despite me absolutely loving all those folks at Universal, did I use that leverage to my advantage? Yes. And in the 11th hour, I go, ‘You know, that’s a lovely offer of $9m. But I need one more to make it 10.’”

“That’s a big milestone when you’re an actor. To receive an eight-figure offer, for a woman, is huge. Sometimes women don’t like to talk about that. Whereas I don’t think the guys have any issues saying they get $20m a movie.”

Rebel Wilson at the 2024 AACTA Awards (Getty Images for AFI)

While the Pitch Perfect films made Wilson a household name, the actor says playing “Fat Amy” resulted in her being contractually obliged to maintain the weight she was at.

Her agency, she writes in the memoir, “liked me fat because they got hundreds of thousands of dollars in commission for each film where I played the fat funny girl”.

Rebel Rising has been making waves in the film industry since Wilson revealed she had dedicated an entire chapter to actor Sacha Baron Cohen, who she claims kept harassing her to “go naked” for a future scene the entire time they worked on the 2016 comedy The Brothers Grimsby.

In a statement to The Independent, Baron Cohen’s representatives rejected Wilson’s claims. “While we appreciate the importance of speaking out, these demonstrably false claims are directly contradicted by extensive detailed evidence, including contemporaneous documents, film footage, and eyewitness accounts from those present before, during and after the production of The Brothers Grimsby.”