Richard Linklater replies to Julie Delpy’s ‘pay inequality’ comments
Filmmaker Richard Linklater has responded to actor Julie Delpy’s recent statement where she revealed that she was not paid at par with co-star Ethan Hawke for the first two films in the critically acclaimed Before trilogy.
In a statement, the filmmaker acknowledged that “gender pay inequality” is an important issue plaguing the society but asserted that his Before trilogy should not be taken as an example of this.
“First off, for these films we’ve been so lucky to even get made fall squarely in the indie/low-budget/labour-oflove category. The first two were budgeted at $ 2.7 million. Nobody was getting paid much at all,” he said.
The Before trilogy started with 1995’s Before Sunrise, featuring Delpy and Ethan Hawke as two strangers; Celine and Jesse, who decide to spend some time with each other in the Austrian city of Vienna.
Delpy, in a video interview from Zurich Film Festival, had revealed that she insisted on equal pay for the third Before movie. “For the first movie I think I was paid maybe a tenth of what Ethan was paid. The second movie I was paid half. The third movie I said, ‘Listen guys, if I’m not paid the same, I won’t do it,” shared the actor.
Linklater admitted that Hawke was paid a “little more” than Delpy but justified his higher salary by saying that Hawke was already a Hollywood star in the 90s while Delpy “was just getting established in the US.”
Linklater maintained that Delpy was never offered anything less. “It’s up to everyone to do everything they can to demand transparency and this longoverdue equality at whatever level they find themselves,” he concluded.