Last week it was reported that HBO, who make shows such as 'Game of Thrones', Westworld, Silicon Valley and Girls, has closed all of its gender pay gaps. It's frustrating to discover that even the biggest actors in the world still have to face institutionalized sexism like this, but at least a company as big as HBO is dealing with it.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, president of programming Casey Bloys said the Time's Up movement led to a systematic review of pay across all of their shows. In fact, he said the move was inspired by both the Time's Up movement and their own Reese Witherspoon, who stars in and produces the hit series Big Little Lies.

Bloys explained:

"One of the things that’s come out of thinking about the movement and some conversations with Reese, who's really at the forefront, is something we've done recently.

"We've proactively gone through all of our shows—in fact, we just finished our process where we went through and made sure that there were no inappropriate disparities in pay; and where there were, if we found any, we corrected it going forward.

"And that’s is a direct result of the Time's Up movement."

However, we know that there was definitely one show that didn't need to be adjusted. In Game of Thrones, actors are divided into various 'tiers' when it comes to salary, but each tier holds actresses and actors at the same level. As part of an investigation into television salaries conducted last year, Variety figured out who is in Tier A and what they make.

Among this top tier is Emilia Clarke (who plays Daenerys), Kit Harington (Jon Snow), Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime), Lena Headey (Cersei) and Peter Dinklage (Tyrion).

When you look at those names it's pretty clear - they are all the most important characters in the ongoing story and your typical fan-favorites.

According to Variety, the above all make $500,000 per episode and have been at this level since the beginning of season six. However, this pales in comparisons to some shows.

The Big Bang Theory is so popular (don't ask me how) that each cast member - Kaley Cuoco, Johnny Galecki, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, and Jim Parsons - makes an incredible $900,000 per episode.

Game of Thrones' highest salaries are closer to the cast of ABC's Modern Family, showing the big difference between TV drama and comedy.

In the realm of drama, Kevin Spacey was also paid $500,000 per episode for House of Cards, a paycheque he definitely won't be cashing in anymore. Ellen Pompeo, the lead in Grey's Anatomy, recently negotiated a deal to make over $575,000 per episode and detailed her advice on how to make ask for a pay rise, something everyone can learn a little something from.

The Thrones cast signed their contracts for the final seasons back in 2014, so the tiers may be a little different than expected. In the years since, actresses like Sophie Turner have boomed with her appearance in the X-Men movies, meaning she might have negotiated a better deal if it were done today.

The last season of Game of Thrones could well be one of the most hyped events in television history. The barn-stormingly  successful HBO series has been a total goldmine for the network, and has gone on to introduce millions of ardent fans around the world to the Song of Ice and Fire series. Personally, I'm totally desperate to know how it all ends, aren't you? Will Jon, Daenerys and Tyrion unite the bickering factions of Westeros and displace Cersei before disaster strikes? Or will the undead hordes of the Night King manage to plunge the Seven Kingdoms into eternal winter? We won't know until the finale airs.

However, once the series winds down, who knows what the cast will have to do instead? Game of Thrones is one of the most popular shows on TV right now - so you can imagine that the cast are earning a fortune at the moment, right? Well: think again. According to a noteworthy former cast member, the actors of Game of Thrones aren't actually paid as much as you might have assumed.

Scottish actor Richard Madden has revealed that he wasn't paid that much money when he portrayed Robb Stark in the first three seasons of GoT, and also that he knew in advance that his character was going to be killed off in the infamous Red Wedding plotline. In an interview with British newspaper The Sunday Times, Madden stated that his co-star, actress Michelle Fairley (who played Catelyn Stark) probably earned more than him.

Madden stated: "People think I am [loaded] because of Game Of Thrones, but you know, when I signed up for that I was 22, with f*ck all on my CV, so I was paid f*ck all ... I care less about how much other people are paid, and more what it takes for me to shut up and go and do my job."

Madden also took time to rail against the wage gap, stating: "The equality thing needs to be addressed hugely between male and female co-stars. I know that from friends of mine. But there's only so much I can do for myself. Agents and lawyers, they do all that stuff ... Going into the world of Game of Thrones, I'd already learnt so much from doing it as a kid, of feeling isolated, or getting arrogant because you're on a TV show. I'd kind of done all that. I could deal with it a lot better."

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/sophiefrancsca/status/1034172186452471808]]

Madden is currently starring in the ITV series The Bodyguard, in which he portrays Police Sergeant David Budd, a war veteran assigned to protect fictional Home Secretary Julia Montague whose politics stand for everything he hates. Ah well: maybe Madden wasn't exactly paid a king's ransom for playing the king in the north, but hey - it seems like he's one of the hottest actors working in TV right now ... in more ways than one anyway.

Every fan of Game of Thrones has their favourite character.

Some love the nobility and honour of Jon Snow; others identify with Tyrion's fast-thinking, even-faster-talking persona. But for me, the character who I enjoy watching the most, the character who (for me) best embodies how Game of Thrones wanted to set itself apart from the regular fantasy fare, is Cersei Lannister.

The de-facto villain in a show absolutely teeming with them, Cersei sets herself apart from her peers because of not only her spitefulness, political scheming and outright villainous nature, but also the steel and burning passion by which she defeats all her enemies to sit on the Iron Throne, even as they outmatch, overpower or outmanoeuvre her.

Pretenders to that throne have been coming for her for years, but she's beaten them all, and in a way, it's just Classic Cersei that she's able to go out on her own terms, reunited with her brother/lover combo Jaime, crushed underneath the rubble in the Red Keep.

You can see her death scene here:

[[jwplayerwidget||https://content.jwplatform.com/videos/oPQWO22m-Q0L14jDU.mp4||oPQWO22m]]

Cersei Lannister is, of course, played expertly by Lena Headey, the British actress who really made her name in the corridors and courts of King's Landing. Now, with four Emmy nominations for Best Supporting Actress, Headey has definitely benefitted from appearing on Game of Thrones, but recognition isn't the only way in which she's been rewarded.

Breaking down Headey's salary for season eight, The Hollywood Reporter claim her salary is $1.2 million, but curiously, in the 434 minutes of Game of Thrones' final season, Lena Headey only appears in 25 of those. So... that's a pretty handy hourly rate, isn't it?

Fox News crunched the numbers so I won't have to, and figured out that she made $48,000 for every minute she was on screen, smirking nefariously, complaining that she didn't have any elephants or looking at Euron Greyjoy like she couldn't wait to kill him.

Keep in mind, she probably did a bit more work than just 25 minutes; a lot of her footage would have ended up on the cutting room floor, but still, it's just an insane amount of money, isn't it?

[[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/Bxaq7W_B38W/?utm_source=ig_embed]]

It's a sum she's going to have to get used to not having for a while; Headey said her goodbye to Game of Thrones and to Cersei in an Instagram post, saying to her followers: "there she goes."

"I loved her. I am grateful for the opportunity. Massively thankful for your encouraging and supportive love along the way," Headey says, and even not counting the salary, I'm sure the 45-year-old will miss playing one of television's greatest villains of all time.

Grey's Anatomy is one of the biggest shows of all time. The clearest indicator of its success is the fact that everyone, whether they've seen an episode or not, knows the name. Having 14 seasons and 311 episodes under its belt isn't a bad sign either.

Seeing its gargantuan success, actress Ellen Pompeo decided to ask for a much bigger paycheque to match the growth of the series. After all, she is playing Dr. Meredith Grey (as Wikipedia informs me), so the whole enterprise is dependent on her to keep running. Just consider that in comparison to any other medical series: it would have been pretty weird if House had kept going after Hugh Laurie's grouchy doctor left it behind.

[[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/BYtWKw6FbeY/]]

The news of this pay rise comes after it recently became known that she has become the highest-earning actress on a TV drama, making an incredible $575,000 for every episode of the currently-running season. In a recent interview with People magazine, she explained exactly how she got such a good deal, targeting her answers specifically at the women reading:

"Ladies, when asking for a raise, always start with the positive. A compliment is nice. 'I deserve X because of Y and Z.' You know, you gotta have reasons - you gotta have stuff to back up what you’re asking for and why. Numbers always help.

"The only time you ever really have power in asking for anything is if you’re willing to walk away. When you’re asking for a raise, you’ve got to be willing to walk out the door if you don’t get what you want. If you’re not willing to walk out the door, then you’re going to get f****d.

"Don’t be worried about what people think. Unless, of course, what you’re going to say is an insult. Then be worried about what they think."

[[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/BIs17gaA2t_/]]

It's a little hard to swallow this advice at first, knowing that the amount Pompeo was making before this pay rise is far more than most of us will ever see. Being "willing to walk away" is a little more difficult when you're dependent on your salary to pay your rent, for example. But that doesn't mean there aren't some important things to take away from her advice.

It can be quite difficult to think of the big picture and realize how much you are actually worth to your employers, but you may find that you are in a better position to negotiate than you initially thought. It may not get you into Pompeo's ridiculous numbers, but it could be more than you'd expect.

[[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/2lUzASEAXc/]]

In January Pompeo was heralded as "TV's $20 million woman" in her Hollywood Reporter cover interview. In the article, she credited the creator of Grey's Anatomy, Shonda Rhimes, as the one who empowered her to know her own worth in the first place. She also addressed why exactly she hadn't asked for a raise earlier:

"Maybe it’s my Irish Catholic upbringing, but you never want to [be perceived as] too greedy. Or maybe it’s just that as women, that’s our problem; a guy wouldn’t have any problem asking for $600,000 an episode. And as women, we’re like, ‘Oh, can I ask for that? Is that OK?’ I’d call Shonda and say, ‘Am I being greedy?’"

She also spoke about equal pay last month on The Ellen Show, where the interviewer notes that she was initially making less than her male co-star on Grey's Anatomy, despite the fact that she's the titular character. You can watch her eloquent response to these questions in the video below:

[[youtubewidget||https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laT8M1x16QE]]

"But CAA compiled a list of stats for me, and Grey’s has generated nearly $3 billion for Disney. When your face and your voice have been part of something that’s generated $3 billion for one of the biggest corporations in the world, you start to feel like, ‘OK, maybe I do deserve a piece of this.'"

That's a fair enough reason if you ask me. However, I can't even imagine making $575,000 for just one episode's worth of work. Even if it took an entire year to film that hour of TV that would be ridiculous.