Hollywood pay gap in spotlight again
Jennifer Lawrence pulled in US$46 million this year, making her once again the world’s highest-paid actress.
That’s according to Forbes, which yesterday released its annual list of actresses’ earnings. But Lawrence’s pre-tax income pales in comparison to what her male counterparts earn.
Although Forbes will release its list of highest-paid actors tomorrow, 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 US$64.5M.
Lawrence made less than the top five highest-paid actors on the celebrities list. In addition to Johnson, there’s Jackie Chan (US$61M), Matt Damon (US$55M), Tom Cruise (US$53M) and Johnny Depp (US$48M). If Lawrence were a man, she would have come in just ahead of Ben Affleck, who earned US$43M.
Lawrence’s earnings have been part of the conversation about the Hollywood pay gap before. The 2014 Sony email hack revealed that she, 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 2016 Forbes list supplemented their pay from acting with major endorsement deals, according to Forbes. For instance, Jennifer Aniston, who came in fourth at US$21M, made most of her money through endorsements.
Melissa Mccarthy was No 2 on the Forbes list with US$33M. She received an estimated eight-figure fee for Ghostbusters, and designs her own clothing line. She was followed by Scarlett Johansson at US$25M (and who was reportedly paid US$17.5M for next year’s Ghost in the Shell).
Forbes, which counted earnings before fees and taxes between June 1, 2015 and June 1, 2016, also included China’s Fan Bingbing (No 5 with US$17M) and India’s Deepika Padukone (No 10 with US$10M). Rounding out the list were Charlize Theron (No 6 with US$16.5M), Adams (No 7 with US$13.5M), Julia Roberts (No 8 with US$12M) and Mila Kunis (No 9 with US$11M).
The Hollywood pay gap became a hot topic last year when Patricia Arquette turned her Academy Awards acceptance speech into a call for wage equity for women.
After the Sony hack, Lawrence wrote publicly about negotiating for deals and being ‘‘over trying to find the ‘adorable’ way to state my opinion and still be likeable’’.
Bradley Cooper, who also starred in American Hustle, said he was shocked to find out what Adams was paid for the film. ‘‘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. For instance, only 21 of the top 100 films in 2014 had a female lead or co-lead, and just 28.1 per cent of all speaking roles were women, according to a University of Southern California study.