Jessica Chastain is continuing to fight the good fight. The wonderfully outspoken advocate for gender equality in Hollywood frequently draws attention to the industry’s double standards, and in today’s issue of Variety, she tackles the pay gap.
“I’m not taking jobs anymore where I’m getting paid a quarter of what the male co-star is being paid. I’m not allowing that in my life,” Chastain writes. She then revisits an important moment that steered her to this point. In the wake of the Sony hack, which revealed that Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams received significantly lower paychecks for their work on “American Hustle” than their male co-stars, Chastain watched Amy Pascal, the former Chairperson of the studio, give a talk. “She said part of the reason women don’t get paid equal to men is they don’t ask for more; actresses need to stop being so grateful. That really hit me. At first, I was really pissed off,” Chastain recalls. (We were also pissed off.) “And then I thought, ‘She’s touching on something here.’ Women need to step forward and demand they’re fairly compensated for their work.”
The two-time Oscar nominee says that she wants women to feel “empowered” to negotiate their pay, partly because “You have a scale to measure it by, because the big agencies know what the male actors are getting paid.” She emphasizes that women can “come forward and say, ‘This is 2017. We’re not doing this anymore.’”
“What I do now, when I’m taking on a film, I always ask about the fairness of the pay,” Chastain explains. “I ask what they’re offering me in comparison to the guy. I don’t care about how much I get paid; I’m in an industry where we’re overcompensated for the work we do,” the “Miss Sloane” actor emphasizes. “But I don’t want to be on a set where I’m doing the same work as someone else and they’re getting five times what I’m getting.”
Exactly! So often the conversation about pay equality in Hollywood gets derailed because someone dismisses the issue as a problem, and suggests that Hollywood stars are grossly overpaid in the first place. This is entirely beside the point. Chastain isn’t saying she and other actresses are underpaid period, she’s saying they are underpaid in comparison to men who are doing the same job and getting substantially more money for it. Rather than shrugging off actresses’ concerns as “rich people problems,” we need to bear in mind that they are drawing attention to the wider-ranging problem of women being undervalued for their work.
Chastain continues, “In the past, what I used to do — this is terrible — a movie would come to me with an offer. They wouldn’t want me to do my deal until they cast the male actor. They would wait and see what they had left over, even if they’d come to me first. And so I stopped doing that.” What a painfully clear illustration of how much the project prioritizes you — or doesn’t. “Now, if someone comes to me and has an offer but wants to wait, I’m like, ‘Goodbye.’ If you want me in your film, do a favored-nation clause. Don’t determine my worth based on what’s left over,” she says.
The Golden Globe winner reveals that she recently turned down a gig — not because it wasn’t well-paid, but because her male co-star was going to take home more than her. While she initially worried that she had made the wrong decision, she knew she made the right call after realizing that “everyone in the studio system heard what I did,” and the decision to walk away helped carve out a reputation for her: “Don’t bring Jessica something where she’s not being fairly compensated compared to the male actor.” She observes, “Even though I lost that film, I’ve created a boundary. I drew a line in the sand.”
Chastain launched her own company, Freckle Films, to develop female-driven material, and has set a goal to work with a female filmmaker every year. “They’re not given the same opportunities, so if I have any influence in choosing a film or a script or finding a director, I’m absolutely going to make a difference,” she said. Chastain also serves on the advisory committee of We Do It Together, a nonprofit production company dedicated to financing and producing media content that empowers women.
In an interview earlier this year, Chastain said, “I’m doing my part to make the change, so why isn’t everyone else?” She concludes her Variety piece with another call to arms: “The power of ‘no’ means you’re educating people in how to treat you.”
It really seems like Chastain is getting increasingly emboldened with her mission to make Hollywood a fairer, more inclusive place. The decision to use her platform to speak out for equality has not been without consequence. “I had one male director say to me that I talk too much about all of this ‘women stuff,’” Chastain has said. And we’re betting that’s far from the only time she’s received advice to quiet down about these matters. We admire the fact that despite pressure to accept the status quo, Chastain remains committed to the cause — and is willing to confront these injustices so publicly.
Many of who have spoken candidly about Hollywood’s pay gap — including Chastain, Lawrence, Charlize Theron, and Natalie Portman — are A-list stars. While they are setting an amazing example for fellow actresses to know their worth, it’s important to bear in mind that many lesser known actresses don’t feel confident enough to voice questions or concerns about their pay, and understandably so. Their careers aren’t solidified, and they fear losing opportunities. Rather than just putting the onus on those who are adversely affected by sexist wages to speak up and/or walk away from jobs, it’s important that we continue to pressure employers to make equal pay a priority.
Head over to Variety to read Chastain’s piece. You can catch her in Niki Caro’s “The Zookeeper’s Wife,” now in theaters. The drama is based on a true story and centers on zookeepers who saved hundreds of lives during the Holocaust.
