“House of Cards” star Robin Wright demanded to be paid the same as her male co-star Kevin Spacey, and threatened “to go public” if Netflix didn’t cough up the dough.
“I was like, ‘I want to be paid the same as Kevin,’” Wright told media at the Rockefeller Foundation, according to the Huffington Post.
Wright plays Claire Underwood, the wife of President Frank Underwood (Spacey)on the Netflix show, while also serving as a producer and occasional director.
“It was the perfect paradigm,” she added. “There are very few films or TV shows where the male, the patriarch, and the matriarch are equal. And they are in ‘House of Cards.’”
And this is why she vouched for equal pay between her and Spacey.
“I was looking at the statistics and Claire Underwood’s character was more popular than [Frank’s] for a period of time. So I capitalized on it. I was like, ‘You better pay me or I’m going to go public,’” Wright said. “And they did.”
According to the Huffington Post, Wright spoke about a variety of different topics including politics and parenting. The hour-long conversation with Judith Rodin, the president of The Rockefeller Foundation, was the first in a series of events the foundation is hosting called “Insight Dialogues.”
Forbes reported that Wright made $5.5 million from her entire stint on “House of Cards,” so far, while TV Guide reported in 2014 that Spacey made $500,000 an episode, putting the actors salary at $6.5 million.
The talk of equal pay has been a topic of debate in Hollywood. Jennifer Lawrence wrote an essay last year denouncing the pay gap between male and female actors. Zoe Saldana has been vocal about the pay gap, as well, and insiders told TheWrap back in October that a similar pay inequality impacts women actors, producers, writers and executives, alike.
“Across the board at the executive level, it’s at least a 20 percent difference between men and women’s salaries,” said one top female executive at a premium cable network.