Working with leisure titans like Netflix is a dream come true for these looking 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 Marvel Girl. However when taking up a number one position for Netflix’s hit TV collection Home of Playing cards, she needed to tackle two extra jobs—producing and directing—to make the identical cash as her male co-star Kevin Spacey.
“It was difficult, I am going to be honest,” she informed Selection in a current interview. “When I said, ‘I think it’s only fair because my character became as popular as [Spacey’s],’ they said, ‘We can’t pay you the same as an actor, so we will make you exec producer and you can direct. We will give you three different paychecks.’”
“I asked, ‘Why can’t you pay me as an actor?’ ‘Because you didn’t win an Academy Award.’”
Wright performed beloved character Claire Underwood within the collection 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-favorite 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 watch sore of 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 just is,” Wright stated.
“If you say, ‘Why did so-and-so female not get the same amount as Will Smith?’ They say, ‘It will increase after you win.’ Nomination, not so much. Why does it have to do anything with a raise?”
Spacey made almost half one million for starring on every episode of Home of Playing cards, although 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 standard as her co-star’s, she leveraged that reality 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 gained a Golden Globe for excellent actress in a TV drama the 12 months earlier than.
“I was like, ‘You better pay me or I’m going to go public,’” Wright informed The New York Occasions in a 2016 interview. “And they did.”
Netflix didn’t reply to Fortune’s request for remark.
Different profitable girls talking out on equal pay
Girls throughout all industries—from Wall Avenue to Hollywood—are combating the identical battle. Wall Avenue titan and Ellevest founder Sallie Krawcheck has been significantly outspoken on girls’s wage discrimination.
“We’ve made progress, but that progress has stalled,” Krawcheck informed Enterprise Insider throughout a 2016 interview. “I really think the final or one of the final legs of feminism is for us to become financially equal with men. And putting it another way, until we are financially equal with men, we are not equal with men.”
Just like Wright, actress Gillian Anderson additionally needed to struggle for her cash. Because the star of Fox’s hit collection The X-Information through the Nineties, she stated she earned lower than what co-star 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 informed the Hollywood Reporter that Anderson and her co-star finally took dwelling the equal pay for the collection.
“Even in interviews in the last few years, people have said to me, ‘I can’t believe that happened, how did you feel about it, that is insane,’” Anderson informed The Day by day Beast in a 2016 interview. “And my response always was, ‘That was then, this is now.’ And then it happened again! I don’t even know what to say about it.”
