Julianne Moore Isn’t Paid as Much as Her Co-stars, Here’s the Unsettling Reason Behind It

Business LoungeJuly 7, 2019

It is a commonly known fact that women are not paid as much as their male counterparts regardless of profession, and this certainly holds true even for the entertainment industry.

In fact, while the corporate world seems to have made some progress in ensuring equal pay for all, Hollywood still seems to be struggling in making this a reality. Just take actress Julianne Moore as an example.

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Even after having established herself as a strong female actor, Julianne Moore is still not confident she is being paid just as much as she would’ve been had she been a man

Even though Moore has received many accolades, including an Oscar, apparently these are still not enough to ensure she would be compensated as much as her male counterparts.

According to an interview which the actress gave to The Telegraph, when asked whether she was getting paid just as much as her male colleagues in the industry, Moore burst out laughing and answered in the negative.

It’s A Hierarchy

Explaining the dynamics of pay in Hollywood, Moore revealed in the interview that actors and actresses get paid according to a hierarchy, implying that women are not considered on the same level as men when it comes to compensation.

However, the case is different when it comes to independent films because, according to Moore, actors are compensated as a percentage of profit, which tends to equalize any pay gaps.

While it makes sense that an actor, regardless of gender, should be paid more if they are more popular compared to another actor, the issue arises when two actors supposedly enjoy the same level of fame and demand the same kind of compensation.

Of course, evaluating fame is a subjective matter, but the pay gap should not be so significant that it begs the question: are women being paid less compared to men in Hollywood?

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Scarlett Johansson was the highest paid female actor in Hollywood last year, however, the compensation she generated was not even as high as the sixth highest-paid actor in Hollywood

A Challenge

According to Moore, it’s certainly challenging to demand compensation that is equivalent to what a male colleague is charging. Moore is definitely not the only one to be raising a voice against this gap in compensation. Back in 2015, actress Jennifer Lawrence had composed a letter with a title that posed the same question.

In 2015, the speech delivered by actress Patricia Arquette in response to winning an Oscar had also focused on the need for wage equality in the industry. However, even after all these years since these actresses had raised their voice against the gap in wages, the industry does not seem to have made much progress.

Just back in January 2018, a report had revealed that actor Mark Wahlberg had done some reshoots for the film All The Money in the World and had commanded $1.5 million for them.

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The controversy of the pay gap between Mark Wahlberg and his co-star Michelle Williams fueled the conversation in Hollywood about equal pay

However, at the same time, actress Michelle Williams had also been summoned to do the same reshoots but was paid somewhere around $1K for them simply because of a clause in her contract that compelled her to do reshoots, while Wahlberg did not have such a clause.

Williams did such a good job regardless of the compensation received that she even received a nomination for a Golden Globe award.

The wage disparity still exists and this can be proven by the fact that Scarlett Johansson, named the highest-paid actress in 2018, generated only $40.5 million that year while Will Smith, who ranked sixth on the list of male actors, garnered $42 million.