Working with leisure titans like Netflix is a dream come true for these searching for Hollywood fame—however a little bit of the glint is misplaced when having to struggle for equal pay on set.
Actress Robin Wright could also be an on-screen icon for her roles in Forrest Gump, The Princess Bride, and Surprise Girl. However whereas enjoying a number one position in Netflix’s hit TV sequence Home of Playing cards, she needed to tackle two further jobs—producing and directing—to make the identical cash as her male costar Kevin Spacey.
“It was troublesome, I’m going to be trustworthy,” she advised Selection in a latest interview. “Once I stated, ‘I feel it’s solely honest as a result of my character turned as fashionable as [Spacey’s],’ they stated, ‘We are able to’t pay you an identical as an actor, so we are going to make you exec producer and you may direct. We offers you three completely different paychecks.’”
“I requested, ‘Why can’t you pay me as an actor?’ ‘Since you didn’t win an Academy Award.’”
Wright performed beloved character Claire Underwood within the sequence between 2013 and 2018 and was nominated for 3 Golden Globes and 6 primetime Emmys for her position, alongside two different Emmys for her producing chops.
However regardless of solidifying herself as a fan favourite and important protagonist within the Home of Playing cards present, she needed to go above and past to safe a wage near Spacey’s reported $500,000-per-episode pay as Claire’s husband, Frank Underwood.
Preventing for equal pay in Hollywood
Wage discrimination has lengthy been a sore spot in Hollywood. Actresses have needed to struggle tooth and nail to attain a wage that an actor can be awarded, doing the identical work.
“That has been the protocol for years—it simply is,” Wright stated.
“In case you say, ‘Why did so-and-so feminine not get the identical quantity as Will Smith?’ They are saying, ‘It’s going to enhance after you win.’ Nomination, not a lot. Why does it need to do something with a elevate?”
Spacey made almost half-a-million for starring on every episode of Home of Playing cards, regardless that an unsettling battle arose at work. In 2024, the 65-year-old actor needed to pay a $1 million settlement over accusations he sexually harassed younger male staffers on set.
Wright wasn’t keen to place up with a pay considerably decrease than that of Spacey for lengthy; as soon as she realized her character was simply as fashionable as her costar’s, she leveraged that truth in wage negotiations. By 2015, it appeared as if Wright’s technique was beginning to repay, because it was reported the actress reeled in a $5.5 million wage, extra on par with Spacey’s pay. Coincidence or not, Wright had received a Golden Globe for excellent actress in a TV drama the 12 months earlier than.
“I used to be like, ‘You higher pay me or I’m going to go public,’” Wright advised the New York Instances in a 2016 interview. “And so they did.”
Netflix didn’t reply to Fortune’s request for remark.
Different profitable girls talking out on equal pay
Ladies throughout all industries—from Wall Avenue to Hollywood—are preventing the identical battle. Wall Avenue titan and Ellevest founder Sallie Krawcheck has been significantly outspoken on girls’s wage discrimination.
“We’ve made progress, however that progress has stalled,” Krawcheck advised Enterprise Insider throughout a 2016 interview. “I actually suppose the ultimate or one of many ultimate legs of feminism is for us to turn into financially equal with males. And placing it one other manner, till we’re financially equal with males, we aren’t equal with males.”
Just like Wright, actress Gillian Anderson additionally needed to struggle for her cash. Because the star of Fox’s hit sequence The X-Recordsdata in the course of the Nineteen Nineties, she stated she earned lower than what costar David Duchovny was paid. When the community selected to revive the science fiction TV present in 2015, the problem of wage discrimination reared its head once more, with Anderson saying she was supplied “half” that of her male counterpart. Sources advised the Hollywood Reporter that Anderson and her costar in the end took house equal pay for the sequence.
“Even in interviews in the previous few years, folks have stated to me, ‘I can’t consider that occurred, how did you are feeling about it, that’s insane,’” Anderson advised the Day by day Beast in a 2016 interview. “And my response all the time was, ‘That was then, that is now.’ After which it occurred once more! I don’t even know what to say about it.”
