Oscar winner Olivia Coleman, reckons she would get paid more money for her films if she were called Oliver as she discussed the pay disparity in Hollywood
Actress Olivia Colman has come out firing at Hollywood – insisting she would be paid more if she was male.
The Oscar winner, 50, insisted that her wages would be much higher if her first name was Oliver. The former Peep Show and The Crown star came out swinging about pay disparity in Hollywood during a US TV chat.
Asked about the inequalities in pay she experienced in the film and TV industry, Colman reacted: “Don’t get me started on the pay disparity, but male actors get paid more because they used to say they drew in the audiences. And actually, that hasn’t been true for decades but they still like to use that as a reason to not pay women as much as their male counterparts.”
Speaking as a guest on CNN’s The Amanpour Hour, the host asked if she had pay disparity despite her multiple accolades in the industry starring in films like The Favourite and Accused, as well as television shows like The Crown, Broadchurch and Heartstopper.
“I’m very aware that if I was Oliver Colman, I would be earning a f*** of a lot more than I am. I know of one pay disparity, which is a 12,000% difference.”
Colman is the latest Hollywood star to call out the inequalities in wages. Taraji P. Henson has also been raising her voice against the industry not valuing Black actresses. While promoting The Color Purple at the end of last year, the star revealed that she almost quit the industry because she was being underpaid for her work.
“I’m just tired of working so hard, being gracious at what I do, getting paid a fraction of the cost,” Henson said on SiriusXM. “I’m tired of hearing my sisters say the same thing over and over. You get tired. I hear people go, ‘You work a lot.’ I have to. The math ain’t math-ing. And you start working a lot, you have a team. Big bills come with what we do. We don’t do this alone. It’s a whole team behind us. They have to get paid.”
Colman famously played the queen in The Crown for seasons three and four but that drama was also caught up in a pay row.
In March 2018 it emerged that Claire Foy, Queen Elizabeth in the first two series The Crown, was paid less than her on-screen Duke of Edinburgh Matt Smith. Variety said Foy was paid $40,000 (£28,000) per episode for the first two series, which portrayed the monarch in the 1950s and 1960s. Smith’s salary was not revealed.
The Crown co-producer Suzanne Mackie then told a television industry conference that the pay difference would be rectified for the third series. “Going forward, no-one gets paid more than the queen,” she said. Reports also suggested Foy was given an extra payment to compensate for the difference, after it was made public.
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