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Natalie Portman has entered the pay disparity debate by revealing Ashton Kutcher was paid three times more than her for a movie they starred in together.
She has taken her time to speak out about their vastly differing salaries on 2011 comedy “No Strings Attached” but now feels she can stay silent no longer.
“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,” she told the UK edition of Marie Claire magazine.
“Compared to men, in most professions, women make 80 cents to the dollar,” Portman said. “In Hollywood, we are making 30 cents to the dollar.”
Ashton Kutcher took to Twitter to praise Portman for speaking up, tweeting, “So proud of Natalie and all women who stand up for closing the gender pay gap!”
Her comments come in the wake of Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams discussing their frustrations after the 2014 Sony hack revealed they were paid significantly less than their male co-stars on “American Hustle.”
READ MORE: 5 Most Shocking Pay Gaps Between Leading Men and Women
It wasn’t as if Portman was a Hollywood newcomer at the time she made “No Strings Attached.” She won a best actress Oscar for her other 2011 film, “Black Swan.” At the time, co-star Kutcher was best known for TV shows “That 70’s Show” and “Punk’d.”
Another Oscar winning actress, Kate Winslet, told E! Online, “Of course we should be paid the same as the boys. We want to stand alongside them.”
She added, “Hopefully these discussions will continue to support the efforts that are being made all over the world for the right to equal pay in this field and all other industries,.”
Other actresses to have spoken out about the unfair pay gap include Scarlett Johansson, Sienna Miller and Jessica Chastain.
Writing about the issue last October for Lena Dunham’s Lenny letter, Jennifer Lawrence blamed her poor negotiation skills for not getting a fair wage in the past. “I got mad at myself,” she wrote. “I failed as a negotiator because I gave up early … 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’.”
She seems to have learned a thing or two since then having negotiated a $20 million salary for her most recent film, “Passengers,” for which her co-star Chris Pratt was reportedly paid $12 million.
READ MORE: Slay Your Pay: Negotiating the Salary You Deserve
