Olivia Colman has weighed in on the Hollywood pay gap as she insisted she would be paid more if her first name was ‘Oliver’.
The Academy-award winning actress, 50, said the excuse that men attract audiences therefore they get paid more hasn’t been true for decades.
Olivia spoke out about the pay disparity on CNN’s The Amanpour Hour, revealing she is aware of one pay gap with a whopping 12,000 per cent difference.
Asking about her own experience, Olivia said: ‘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.’
Olivia Colman has weighed in on the Hollywood pay gap as she insisted she would be paid more if her first name was ‘Oliver’
The Academy-award winning actress, 50, said the excuse that men attract audiences therefore they get paid more hasn’t been true for decades
‘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.’
Olivia played the role of Queen Elizabeth II in the third and fourth series of the Crown, taking over the role from her predecessor Claire Foy.
Claire previously said she was ‘deeply hurt’ when she learned that her co-star Matt Smith, who played Prince Philip, was paid more than her.
In an interview with NET-A-PORTER’s digital magazine PorterEdit in 2018, the actress chose to be brand it a ‘dirty secret’ as she lamented the situation.
She explained: ‘I was deeply hurt by [the pay gap], because I’d been working on that show for two years. I loved everybody on it.
‘And then I realised, there’s been a big, fat, dirty secret that nobody’s ever talked about. Then there was also that thing [of being] an inadvertent spokesperson. Why did it have to be me?’
She added: ‘You feel lucky to have a job. It’s so competitive. So, in that way, they rely on competitiveness and actors’ vulnerability to say, “They’ll accept it for 10 grand less.”‘
‘I could have said nothing. And I think everyone would have preferred that. But I thought, if I do that, I will be cheating myself and all the other women I know.’
Olivia played the role of Queen Elizabeth II in the third and fourth series of the Crown, taking over the role from her predecessor Claire Foy
Claire previously said she was ‘deeply hurt’ when she learned that her co-star Matt Smith, who played Prince Philip, was paid more than her.
Despite playing Queen Elizabeth II in the Netflix series, producers revealed Claire had been paid significantly less than her co-star because of his Doctor Who fame.
Olivia’s remarks are the latest in a mounting furore over pay disparity in Hollywood.
On Tuesday, Taraji P. Henson was overcome by emotion in an interview that touched on rumors that she had said she was considering quitting acting.
After Gayle King brought up the rumors during a SiriusXM interview, the actress, 53, began to tear up nd sat through a length pause before she could speak again.
‘I’m just tired of working so hard, being gracious at what I do [and] getting paid a fraction of the cost,’ she finally said after Danielle Brooks — her costar in The Color Purple — reached out a hand for support.
She and Taraji were making the rounds with the film’s director Blitz Bazawule to promote their upcoming film, which also stars Fantasia Barrino and Colman Domingo and is adapted from the 1982 Alice Walker novel, the 1985 non-musical Steven Spielberg film and the 2005 musical
She shared her frustrations at making far less than some of her white costars in past projects — despite getting prominent billing among the cast — and she reiterated her criticisms of studio executives for claiming she didn’t have fans willing to see her movies overseas.
Taraji made it clear that her complaints about substandard pay were shared by many other Black actors.
On Tuesday, Taraji P. Henson was overcome by emotion in an interview that touched on rumors that she had said she was considering quitting acting
She shared her frustrations at making far less than some of her white costars in past projects — despite getting prominent billing among the cast
‘I’m tired of hearing my sisters say the same thing over and over. You get tired,’ she continued. ‘I hear people go, ‘You work a lot.’ Well, I have to. The math ain’t math-ing.’
Adding to money stresses was her need to hire a team to manage her career and public appearances once she became a star, which significantly raised her expenses, even though her paychecks still weren’t where she thought they should be.
‘When you start working a lot, you have a team. Big bills come with what we do,’ she explained. ‘We don’t do this alone. It’s a whole team behind us. They have to get paid.’
‘When you hear someone go, ‘Such and such made $10 million,’ that didn’t make it to their account,’ the Hidden Figures star continued. ‘Off the top, Uncle Sam is getting 50 percent. Now you have $5 million. Your team is getting 30 percent off what you gross, not after what Uncle Same took. Now do the math.’
She continued: ‘I’m only human. Every time I do something and break another glass ceiling, when it’s time to renegotiate I’m at the bottom again like I never did what I just did, and I’m tired. I’m tired. It wears on you,’ she said, sounding exasperated. ‘What does that mean? What is that telling me?’
Taraji added that her own difficulty maintaining her position in the industry made it harder for her to help rising stars find their own footing.
‘If I can’t fight for them coming up behind me then what the f*** am I doing?’ she mused as her tears intensified.
She paused for a moment to dab at her eyes, and she raised her hand up to cover them while she sobbed, before composing herself and continuing.
The Hustle & Flow actress also brought up previous complaints about studio executives telling her that her films ‘don’t translate overseas’ as an excuse for not hiring her for bigger-budget films that would be dependent on the international box office.
‘I’m tired hearing of that my entire career,’ she said. ‘Twenty-plus years in the game and I hear the same thing and I see what you do for another production but when it’s time to go to bat for us they don’t have enough money. And I’m just supposed to smile and grin and bear it. Enough is enough!’
She added that she had had to diversify with sponsorships and other non-acting sources of income to keep up.
‘That’s why I have other [brands] because this industry, if you let it, it will steal your soul. I refuse to let that happen,’ she said defiantly.
