Octavia Spencer on her discussion with co-star Jessica Chastain,
And then I said, ‘But here’s the thing, women of colour ... we make far less than white women. So, if we’re gonna have that conversation about pay equity, we gotta bring the women of colour to the table.’
Jessica Chastain helped co-star Octavia Spencer secure five times her usual fee for their new film.
Spencer has revealed that Chastain, her co-star in the 2011 movie The Help, pushed for the pair to earn equal pay for their upcoming holiday comedy after she learned how little women of colour earn in Hollywood compared to their white colleagues.
At an event at the Sundance Film Festival on Wednesday, Spencer, who won an Oscar for her performance in The Help, explained that Chastain negotiated the raise after they discussed the issue of pay equity in Hollywood.
“About 15 months ago, Jessica Chastain ... contacted me and said, ‘I want us to do a comedy,’” Spencer told the audience at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s Women Breaking Barriers panel.
“I’m like, ‘Yeah!’ She called me six months later, which would have been last March, and we were talking about pay equity with men and women. She was like, ‘It’s time that women get paid as much as men.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, Jessica, it’s time!’ We were dropping F-bombs and getting it all out there.”
Hidden Figures star Spencer then raised the issue of pay disparity between women of colour and white women in the industry, which came as a shock to Chastain.
“And then I said, ‘But here’s the thing, women of colour on that spectrum, we make far less than white women,” Spencer said. “‘So, if we’re gonna have that conversation about pay equity, we gotta bring the women of colour to the table.’ And I told her my story, and we talked numbers, and she was quiet, and she said she had no idea that that’s what it was like for women of colour.”
Spencer praised Chastain for “walking the walk” as Chastain insisted the pair would make the same amount for the as-yet-untitled movie.
“Fast forward to last week, we’re making five times what we asked for,” said Spencer, who was nominated Tuesday for a best supporting actress Oscar for her role in The Shape of Water.
Universal has greenlit their holiday movie, with Chastain as co-writer. Also at Sundance, Jada Pinkett-Smith praised Chastain.
“It’s nice to go out and march, we can do that. It’s nice to wear black at the Golden Globes,” she said. “But what are we doing behind closed doors? And I’ve got to give our sister Jessica Chastain her props.”
What are we doing behind closed doors? And I’ve got to give our sister Jessica Chastain her props.