10 Actors Who Were Paid Shockingly Little For Famous Roles

5. Ryan Gosling - Half Nelson - $1,000 Per Week

Ryan Gosling shot to fame when he appeared alongside Rachel McAdams in the annoyingly sentimental but somehow irresistible romantic comedy The Notebook. Still, despite the success of that movie and the fact that every girl in the world was in love with him, Gosling still had to accept the relatively low fee of $1,000 per week for his brilliant turn in the drama Half Nelson, in which he played an inner city teacher who befriends one of his students. A relatively underseen - and therefore underrated - film all in all, Half Nelson showed a different side to Gosling. Though he was paid mere peanuts to act in the Ryan Fleck-directed movie, then, his performance did earn him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. So don't feel too bad for the Gosling, who has since emerged as one of Hollywood's hottest actors for stoic performances in movies such as Drive and The Place Beyond the Pines. Nice!