Olivia Colman is going off about pay equity in Hollywood. While appearing as a guest on CNN’s The Amanpour Hour this weekend, Colman shared her thoughts on the gender pay gap that’s still very much an issue in the entertainment industry: “I’m very aware that if I was Oliver Colman, I’d be earning a fuck of a lot more than I am.”
Colman shared her thoughts while promoting her upcoming film, Wicked Little Letters, alongside director Thea Sharrock. Towards the end of the interview, host Christiane Amanpour asked the pair whether they believed women were finally considered “big box office draws,” prompting Colman to open up about her feelings regarding pay equity in Hollywood.
“Research suggests that they’ve always been big box office draws, but they have chosen to say…Don’t get me started on the pay disparity…” Colman said. “But male actors get paid more because they used to say they draw in the audiences. 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 in our industry.”
Amanpour pointed out that Colman herself is an Oscar-winning actress, having won best actress in 2019 for Yorgos Lanthimos‘s The Favourite, and asked her point blank if she feels she has a pay disparity with her male peers. “I’m very aware that if I was Oliver Colman, I’d be earning a fuck of a lot more than I am,” Colman replied. “I know of one pay disparity which is a 12,000% difference. Do the maths, I know.” She said she’d tell Sharrock about that specific example later, presumably off-camera.
One woman who received a very big payday in Hollywood recently is Margot Robbie, who reportedly took home roughly $50 million after leading Barbie to well over $1 billion at the box office as both star and executive producer. Last week at the Wicked Little Letters premiere, Colman told IndieWire that she filmed a scene for Barbie with Helen Mirren‘s Narrator that was ultimately cut from the film. “I never saw it,” she said, of the scene. But Colman didn’t seemed to chuffed that the scene didn’t make the final cut. “It made perfect sense, because it didn’t add to the story, it was just fun,” the Oscar winner added. “But it was kind of perfect for me, because I got paid for the job, and then no one could say I was shit in it.” Barbie continues to be on the forefront of closing the gender pay gap in Hollywood.