‘A sad Hollywood tradition’
Michelle Williams getting paid way less than her male co-star the norm in most cases
When Michelle Williams attended Sunday’s Golden Globes with Tarana Burke, the activist behind “Me Too,” the actress adeptly turned the focus of red carpet interviews back on the message she and other celebrity-activists pairs wanted to bolster: It’s finally time to end sexual harassment and assault 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 came to light, director Ridley Scott replaced the embattled actor with Christopher Plummer, and got the cast back together again 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 millions for about 10 days of work. Williams and others earned a fraction of that.
Then on Tuesday, USA Today reported some exact figures: Williams earned $80 per diem, adding up to less than $1,000, and less than one percent of the $1.5 million Wahlberg earned. According to the outlet, Wahlberg’s team negotiated the reshoot fee. Reps for the movie studio, the actors and their shared agency did not comment to the outlet, nor did they months ago to The Post.
Scott had previously told USA Today that the actors did the reshoots “for nothing,” and that he also didn’t get paid. Williams had also previously said she offered to be “wherever they needed me, whenever they needed me. And they could have my salary, they could have my holiday, whatever they wanted. Because I appreciated so much that they were making this massive effort.”
The details over the paygap generated plenty of out- rage, including among celebrities. “She has been in the industry for 20 (years),” Jessica Chastain tweeted. “She deserves more than 1% of her male costar’ s salary.”
“This is so messed up that it is almost hard to believe. Almost,” Judd Apatow tweeted. “This is how this business works.”
But 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 Sony hack 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. But through the hack, she discovered in 2014 that she got paid less than her male co-stars (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. After the hack:
“I didn’t get mad at Sony. 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 male co-stars in “American Hustle.”
“She worked everyday 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 that she knew she was getting paid less than her male co-stars.
“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 people who had opinions on how women should go about negotiating,” the actress 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
The actress revealed last year that Ashton Kutcher got paid three times more than her 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 Maire Claire interview. “His (quote) 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.”