Robin Wright, who plays the popular House of Cards character, says she threatened to go public unless she received equal pay to her co-star Kevin Spacey.
The feisty star made the admission during an interview with Judith Rodin, the president of The Rockefeller Foundation, at a recent event in New York.
“I was like, ‘I want to be paid the same as Kevin,'” says Robin, who at one stage was reportedly raking in US$80,000 less per episode.
“I was looking at the statistics and Claire Underwood’s character was more popular than [Frank’s] for a period of time. So I capitalised on it. I was like, ‘You better pay me or I’m going to go public.'”
Robin says she got her wish.
According to Business Insider, Kevin was pulling in US$500,000 an episode in 2014 for his role as the diabolically devious Frank Underwood on the hit Netflix series. Robin was estimated to be making about US$420,000 an episode.
The actress, who has also directed several episodes, was not very long ago elevated to executive producer on House of Cards which began its fourth season in March 2016.
Robin joins an increasing number of women in Hollywood who have been shedding light on the gender pay gap.
Patricia Arquette and Jennifer Lawrence are just two of the more vocal activists of late. Patricia used her 2015 Oscar acceptance speech to highlight the issue and the need for urgent change.
Robin says having a family with now ex-husband Sean Penn (her two children are now in their 20s) meant that “Because I wasn’t working full time, I wasn’t building my salary bracket.”
“If you don’t build that … with notoriety and presence, you’re not in the game anymore. You become a B-list actor. You’re not box office material,” she said.
“You don’t hold the value you would have held if you had done four movies a year like Nicole Kidman and Cate Blanchett did during the time I was raising my kids. Now I’m kind of on a comeback at 50-years-old.”
