World’s highest-paid actresses still make less than top actors
JENNIFER Lawrence pulled in $46 million this year, making her once again the world’s highest-paid actress.
That’s according to Forbes, which on Tuesday released its annual list of actress’ earnings. But Lawrence’s pretax income pales in comparison to what her male counterparts earn. Yes, even the super rich and famous experience a wage gap.
Although Forbes will release its list of highest-paid actors today, it already has a list of the highest-paid celebrities this year. And the highest-paid actor on that list is Dwayne Johnson, who earned $64.5 million.
Lawrence made less than the top five highest-paid actors, as listed in the Forbes HighestPaid Celebrities list. In addition to Johnson, there’s Jackie Chan ($61 million); Matt Damon ($55 million); Tom Cruise ($53 million) and Johnny Depp ($48 million). If Lawrence were a man, she would have beaten Ben Affleck, who earned $43 million.
Lawrence’s earnings have been part of the conversation about the Hollywood pay gap before. The 2014 Sony email hack revealed that the actress, along with Amy Adams, were paid less than their male co-stars for the movie American Hustle.
Ninety per cent of the women on the Forbes list supplemented their pay from acting gigs with major endorsement deals, ac- AmericanHustle cording to Forbes. For instance, Jennifer Aniston, who came in fourth at $21 million, made most of her money through endorsements from companies such as Emirates airlines, Smartwater, Aveeno and Living Proof, according to Forbes.
Melissa McCarthy earned $33 million and the No2 spot on the Forbes list. She received an estimated eight-figure fee for Ghostbusters and designs her own clothing line. She was followed by Scarlett Johansson at $25 million (who was reportedly paid $17.5 million for next year’s Ghost in the Shell).
Forbes, which counts earn- ings before fees and taxes between June 1, 2015, and June 1, 2016, also included China’s Fan Bingbing (No5 at $17 million) and India’s Deepika Padukone (No10 at $10 million).
The Hollywood pay gap became a hot topic last year when Patricia Arquette turned her Oscar acceptance speech into a call for wage equity for women.
“To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights,” she said.
“It is our time to have wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America!”
After the Sony hack, Lawrence wrote about negotiating for deals and being “over trying to find the ‘adorable’ way to state my opinion and still be likable”.
And Bradley Cooper, who also starred in American Hustle, said he was shocked to find out what Adams was paid for the film.
“She worked every day on that movie and got paid nothing,” Cooper said.
“It’s really horrible actually, it’s almost embarrassing.”
Forbes has pointed to how other actresses, such as Meryl Streep and Gwyneth Paltrow, have been paid less than the men in their movies.
But there’s another factor that may be causing the gap: fewer acting roles for women than for men, which means fewer opportunities for women.
For instance, 21 of the top 100 films in 2014 had a female lead or co-lead, according to a University of Southern California study. Just 28.1 per cent of all speaking roles were women.
The others in the Forbes 2016 Top 10 list of highest paid actresses are Charlize Theron with $16.5 million, Amy Adams with $13.5 million, Julia Roberts with $12 million, and Mila Kunis with $11 million.