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Entertainment September 7, 2017
"We need to be part of the solution, not perpetuating the problem."
We’ve become accustomed to the statistics of gender pay gaps in every field. This time, Natalie Portman revealed that celebrities aren’t an exception to this disparity.
In an interview with Marie Claire UK Portman revealed her co-star Ashton Kutcher made three times more than her for their 2011 rom-com “No Strings Attached.”
She continued to admit she should have been more vocal about the major gap at the time.
“I knew and I went along with it because there’s this thing with ‘quotes’ in Hollywood… 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, but the disparity is crazy,” Portman said.
She continued to note that a major flaw in this problem is the fact that women are forced to stay silent thus perpetuating the issue.
But Portman’s experience speaks to a bigger problem in Hollywood. A Sony hack in 2015 revealed the severity of the gender pay gap in Hollywood.
The leak showed Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams made less than their male counterparts in “American Hustle.”
Lawrence admitted she was more angry at herself for failing as a negotiator than she was at Sony.
Forbes also reported that the world’s ten highest paid actresses made a combined total of $172.5 million while the world’s ten highest paid actors made $448.5 million.
Mark Wahlberg tops the list as highest paid actor earning $68 million. Emma Stone tops the list as the highest paid actress but earns only $26 million.
Portman brought awareness to a systemic issue in Hollywood, but she reminded us that the only way to fix the issue to always speak up about it.
“I don’t think women and men are more or less capable. We just have a clear issue with women not having opportunities. We need to be part of the solution, not perpetuating the problem,” she said.
