English actress Olivia Colman believes if her name was “Oliver” she would be banking more money from Hollywood because of what she claims is a pay disparity between the sexes.
The Academy Award-winning actress, 50, claims women just do not get the same pay rates in the film industry even though they do the same work.
Colman claimed the pay disparity on CNN’s The Amanpour Hour, revealing she is aware of one pay gap with a claimed 12,000 percent difference.
Asked about her own personal experience of being discriminated against in Hollywood, the Crown star said:
Don’t get me started on the pay disparity, but male actors get paid more because they used to say they drew in the audiences.
And actually, that hasn’t been true for decades but they still like to use that as a reason to not pay women as much as their male counterparts.
[…] I’m very aware that if I was Oliver Colman, I would be earning a f*** of a lot more than I am. I know of one pay disparity, which is a 12,000% difference.
Colman played the role of Queen Elizabeth II in the third and fourth series of the Crown, taking over the role from her predecessor Claire Foy.
Foy previously said her feelings were “deeply hurt” when she learned that her co-star Matt Smith, who played Prince Philip, was paid more than her.
Olivia Colman attends the European Premiere of “Wicked Little Letters” at the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square on February 13, 2024 in London, England. (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)
In an interview with NET-A-PORTER’s digital magazine PorterEdit in 2018, the actress chose to brand the claimed discrimination a “dirty secret” as she lamented the situation.
She explained: “I was deeply hurt by [the pay gap], because I’d been working on that show for two years. I loved everybody on it.”
Despite playing Queen Elizabeth II in the Netflix series, producers revealed Foy had been paid significantly less than her co-star because of his Doctor Who fame.
Not everyone agrees with the argument that women are paid less than men in Hollywood.
As Breitbart News reported, veteran actor Sir Michael Caine in 2016 weighed in on the issue, dismissing the idea that female actresses earn less than their male counterparts for the same work.
Hollywood veteran Michael Caine says the idea that female actresses earn less than their male counterparts for the same work is, in his view, “rubbish.” (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau, file)
“It’s rubbish. I worked with Elizabeth Taylor and she got 10 times more than I did — and that was over 30 years ago,” Caine said.
Caine starred alongside Taylor in Michael G. Hutton’s 1972 film X, Y and Zee.
“I don’t agree about the pay gap because she got a lot more money than me,” Caine added.
Caine has also told the London Daily Telegraph that today’s actors are only in it for the fame, and most “can’t really act.”
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