Hollywood’s actors must take pay cuts if equality is to be taken seriously, says Hayek

MEN will have to take pay cuts if they are serious about equality for women in the acting profession, Hollywood star Salma Hayek said.

The Mexican-born actress, a leading voice in the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements, said highly paid actors would have to make sacrifices.

“It is not just the producers who have to change if the pay gap is to be closed. It is actors too,” she said.

“Time’s up. You had a good run but it is time now to be generous with the actresses,” she told a Women in Motion talk at the Cannes film festival.

“If actors ask such inflated fees it will leave nothing for actresses.

“If the movie’s budget is $10-million [R122.4-million], the actor has to understand that if he is making $9.7-million [R118.7-million], it is going to be hard for equality,” she said. “Otherwise they’ll kill the movie. “I will be hated for this. I hope I can get another job,” Hayek joked.

She had accused mogul Harvey Weinstein of threatening to break her kneecaps after she spurned his advances on the set of Frida.

The actress and producer – who says she has sold a raft of womenled projects that she had been trying to make for 10 years, since the Weinstein scandal shook up Hollywood – said real change was happening. “The men are terrified. The predators are hiding. You feel this very palpable atmosphere.”

Hayek said it was now hard to hire known women writers and directors in the US, as studios were snapping them up trying to catch up with the public mood.

Women were jumping from the writers’ room to being show runners on television series, she said.

But Hayek warned pay disparity was going to take some time.

“Which was why women had to be impatient,” she urged.

“We should have been angrier sooner. We should have come together sooner – that is what did it,” Hayek, nominated for a Frida Oscar, said.

Weinstein harassed her on the movie, which she had produced, demanding she do a nude scene with another actress, she has said.

The disgraced mogul contested her claim, with Hayek insisting it was a ploy by his lawyers. – AFP