Natalie Portman is joining the club of actresses speaking out against Tinseltown’s gender pay gap.
The actress, who is tipped to gain an Oscar nod for her role as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in Jackie, revealed that Ashton Kutcher had been paid three times more than her for their 2011 rom-com No Strings Attached.
Speaking to Marie Claire, Natalie said: “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.”
Natalie and Ashton in a scene from No Strings Attached.
According to Natalie, the ‘quote’ is the highest amount an actor or actress has ever been paid.
“His 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,” she went on.
“I mean, we get paid a lot, so it’s hard to complain, but the disparity is crazy.”
Natalie went on to say that “Compared to men, in most professions, women make 80 cents to the dollar. In Hollywood, we are making 30 cents to the dollar.”
Ashton has since chimed in to support his former co-star, taking to Twitter to say he was “so proud” of her and all the other women championing the cause.
The star isn’t the only one to have publicly raised the issue. Charlize Theron, Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Sharon Stone, Hilary Swank, Jennifer Lawrence and many other actresses have all spoken out on the disparity between their pay and those of their male co-stars’.
Patricia Arquette even used her acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress at the 2015 Oscars to chime in, saying, “To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation. We have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s time to have wage equality once and for all”.
