It’s no secret that Hollywood has come under fire for paying female actors less than their male counterparts. And now Natalie Portman has revealed that Ashton Kutcher was paid three (yes, three!) times more than her for their 2011 rom-com, No Strings Attached. The Oscar winner confessed to the shocking pay gap during a recent interview with Marie Claire UK.
“Ashton Kutcher was paid three times as much as me on No Strings Attached. I knew and I went along with it because there’s this thing with ‘quotes’ in Hollywood,” Portman, who stuns on the magazine’s February 2017 cover, explained. “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 added that while a majority of women find themselves being paid less than their male counterparts in most professions, the gender pay difference in Hollywood is especially astounding.
“Compared to men, in most professions, women make 80 cents to the dollar,” she added. “In Hollywood, we are making 30 cents to the dollar.”
The topic of gender equality came up while discussing Portman’s upcoming film, On the Basis of Sex. The Black Swan actress is set to play Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who in 1993 became the first Jewish woman — and only the second woman ever — appointed to the United States Supreme Court.
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To do justice to the longtime women’s rights advocate’s story, Portman, who made her directorial debut last year, told Marie Claire UK that she insisted the film be directed by a woman.
“I don’t think women and men are more or less capable [as directors], we just have a clear issue with women not having opportunities,” she added. “We need to be part of the solution, not perpetuating the problem. As this story is specifically about gender discrimination, I was like, ‘How dare we not hire a female.’”
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