Rebel Wilson details how Hollywood’s pay scales can increase exponentially in her new memoir, Rebel Rising. The actress and comedian opens up about her salaries for Bridesmaids and the Pitch Perfect trilogy.

Wilson writes in the book that she was paid only $3,500 for 2011’s Bridesmaids, which starred Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne and Melissa McCarthy (Wilson played Brynn, the obnoxious roommate of Wiig’s Annie Walker). But the entirety of her small check went to Screen Actors Guild fees to join the union. Nevertheless, “that didn’t matter to me,” Wilson writes. “The experience was everything!”

Wilson notes she booked six new gigs within two weeks of Bridesmaids‘ release, one of which was the 2012 a cappella smash hit, Pitch Perfect.

“Boy, did that movie pay dividends!” Wilson writes, noting she was paid “SAG minimum scale, which was $65,000,” for the film. Pitch Perfect’s success spawned two sequels, in...