Highest Paid Actresses 2008 - Angelina Jolie tops chart

Money may not be everything, but it certainly proves talent and popularity. The critics bleat on about their favourites, or who they have been paid to promote, but the public support has the final say. So we are happy to see one of our favourites at No 1 in the highest paid actress chart for 2008.

Angelina Jolie earned above $15 million for Wanted and may receive $20m for a sequel. The fee is not the only income, however, and the $15m for Edwin A. Salt will be boosted by healthy shares of profits. But also don't forget that Angelina (and Brad) give millions to charity, and huge amounts of time to humanitarian activities.

At No 2, Julia Roberts has returned and hit the jackpot with Duplicity, earning $15 million-plus for the thriller directed by Tony Gilroy. Roberts is also a strong supporter of charities.

Moving from rather cute child actress and coed, Reese Witherspoon has accomplished a surprising variety of roles. Her salary for Four Christmases was around $14m and total earnings put Witherspoon at No 3 for the year.

Cameron Diaz is still a high earner, with around $10m for the comedy What Happens in Vegas, and that helped toward total earnings of around $50m for the year.

Another former child and TV star is No 5, Katherine Heigl, who is leaping up the earnings list. With around $6m for The Ugly Truth and $225,000 per episode for Grey's Anatomy, our guess is her bank balance is fairly healthy.
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