A BRIDGE TOO FAR
Why is there such workplace inequity in Hollywood?
Michelle Williams has now seen workplace inequity close up.
At Sunday’s Golden Globes with #MeToo founder Tarana Burke, Williams turned the focus of red carpet interviews back on the message she and other celebrity-activist pairings wanted to bolster: It’s time to end sexual harassment and assault in Hollywood and in all industries.
It was a resonant statement for Williams, who was up for a best actress Golden Globe for All the Money in the World, which she had initially filmed with Kevin Spacey. After allegations of sexual misconduct against Spacey, director Ridley Scott replaced him with Christopher Plummer and got the cast back to reshoot pivotal scenes.
But it turns out Williams, billed as the lead actress, got paid way less for reshoots than a supporting actor: Mark Wahlberg. As The Washington Post’s Steven Zeitchik reported in November, Wahlberg got paid a huge sum for about 10 days of work. Williams and others earned a fraction of that.
On Tuesday, USA Today among other sources reported some exact figures: Williams earned $80 per diem, adding up to less than $1,000. And less than one per cent of the $1.5 million Wahlberg got paid. USA Today says Wahlberg’s team negotiated the reshoot fee. Likely adding insult to injury — Wahlberg and Williams share the same talent agency. Neither the movie studio, the actors nor their shared agency would comment on the new report, nor did they months ago to The Post. Celebrity site TMZ quotes Wahlberg reps saying he “never” works for free and they demanded the money for him.
Scott had previously told USA Today the actors did the reshoots “for nothing,” and that he also didn’t get paid. Williams had also previously said she offered “whatever they wanted” to finish the movie “because I appreciated so much that they were making this massive effort.”
Before Hollywood grappled so publicly with sexual harassment and assault, the gender pay gap was one of the industry’s dominant issues. Here are the other recent controversies:
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
The computer hack of Sony emails brought out a lot of dirty laundry in the industry, including pay discrepancies for the 2013 movie American Hustle. Lawrence was an international star at the time, thanks to her Hunger Games franchise, and an Oscar winner for Silver Linings Playbook.
But through the hack, she discovered in 2014 that she had been paid less than her male costars (Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale and Jeremy Renner).
A year later, Lawrence wrote an essay for Lenny Letter directly addressing the pay gap and, in particular, drawing attention to the double-standards women encounter when negotiating.
“I didn’t get mad at Sony (after the hack). I got mad at myself. I failed as a negotiator because I gave up early. I didn’t want to keep fighting over millions of dollars that, frankly, due to two franchises, I don’t need ... But if I’m honest with myself, I would be lying if I didn’t say there was an element of wanting to be liked that influenced my decision to close the deal without a real fight. I didn’t want to seem ‘difficult’ or ‘spoiled.’
“At the time, that seemed like a fine idea, until I saw the payroll on the internet and realized every man I was working with definitely didn’t worry about being ‘difficult’ or ‘spoiled.’”
AMY ADAMS
Adams was also paid less than her American Hustle male costars.
“She worked every day on that movie and got paid nothing. It’s really horrible, actually. It’s almost embarrassing,” her co-star Cooper later said. She “should have been paid more than everybody” for her work on the film.
Adams later said she knew she was getting paid less.
“I didn’t speak about it before and I’m probably not going to speak about it forever, because I disagreed with ... not Jennifer per se, but (with) people who had opinions on how women should go about negotiating,” Adams told GQ in 2016.
“The truth is we hire people to negotiate on our behalf, men and women ... I knew I was being paid less and I still agreed to do it because the option comes down to do it or don’t do it. So you just have to decide if it’s worth it for you. It doesn’t mean I liked it.”
NATALIE PORTMAN
Ashton Kutcher got paid three times more than Natalie Portman did for the 2011 rom-com No Strings Attached.
“I knew and I went along with it because there’s this thing with ‘quotes’ in Hollywood,” she said in a Marie Claire interview. “His (quote, based on previous earnings) was three times higher than mine, so they said he should get three times more. I wasn’t as pissed as I should have been. I mean, we get paid a lot, so it’s hard to complain, but the disparity is crazy.
“Compared to men, in most professions, women make 80 cents to the dollar. In Hollywood, we are making 30 cents to the dollar.”
EMMA STONE
When discussing her role in Battle of the Sexes, Stone revealed that in her career, male co-stars have taken a pay cut so that she can have parity with them:
“That’s something they do for me because they feel it’s what’s right and fair. That’s something that’s also not discussed, necessarily — that our getting equal pay is going to require people to selflessly say, ‘That’s what’s fair.’ If my male co-star, who has a higher quote than me but believes we are equal, takes a pay cut so that I can match him, that changes my quote in the future and changes my life.”
TARAJI P. HENSON
Although she would go on to be nominated for a supporting actress Oscar for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Henson would later write that she ended up getting paid “the equivalent of sofa change” compared to what co-stars Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett received. As she wrote in her memoir, Henson’s manager at one point asked for “somewhere in the mid six figures — no doubt a mere percentage” of the millions Pitt got, but was denied. She also had to pay her own location fees while filming in New Orleans. As she wrote:
“The math really is pretty simple: There are way more talented black actresses than there are intelligent, meaningful roles for them, and we’re consistently charged with diving for the crumbs of the scraps, lest we starve. This is exactly how a studio can get away with paying the person who’s name is third on the call sheet of a big-budget film less than two per cent what it’s paying the person whose name is listed first.
“I knew the stakes: No matter how talented, no matter how many accolades my prior work had received, if I pushed for more money, I’d be replaced and no one would so much as a blink.”