Olivia Colman is known for her hilarious stories. Accepting the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Favorite in 2019 she cried out to her children, who she hoped were watching at home because “it No will happen again.” But she was clearly less cheerful during her appearance on CNN Amanpur Hour on the weekend.
Colman, 50, spoke to journalist Christina Amanpour to promote his new film. Evil little letters. But after summarizing the film (with director Thea Sharrock), the Brit quickly moved on to her disappointment with the Hollywood machine.
“Don’t get me started on pay inequality,” the actress who plays Queen Elizabeth in the Netflix series. Crown, said. “Male actors are paid more because they used to say they were crowd pleasers, but that hasn’t really been the case for decades. But they still like to use it as an excuse not to pay women as much as their male counterparts, especially in our industry.”
Amanpour continued to be curious. “Do you have a pay gap?” she asked Colman. “I mean, you’re an Oscar-winning actress, Olivia.”
Colman was not afraid. “I’m well aware that if I were Oliver Colman, I’d be earning a lot more than I am now.”
“Really?” asked Amanpour.
“Absolutely yes,” she responded, adding that she knew of one specific pay gap in her career that was “a 12,000% difference.”
Colman is on a roll: Men make more than women on virtually every film set in Hollywood. Bomb Report for 2018 Forbes found that the 10 highest-paid actresses at the time earned less than 30 cents for every dollar earned by their male co-stars. Really, Forbes As it turns out, these top actresses earned a total of $186 million, compared to the $748.5 million the top 10 men earned.
Despite the undeniable star power of female actors, Hollywood remains a boys’ club, at least in terms of leadership. A recent training A study from the University of Southern California found that only 30 of the top 100 grossing films of 2023 starred women, the same percentage as in 2010.
Unsurprisingly (and depressingly), the same stark disparities in pay and leadership persist across all sectors. Only 10.4% of Fortune 500 companies are led by female executives. Today, working women on average earn 83 cents on the dollar compared to their male counterparts, according to compensation data provider Payscale. Gender Pay Gap Report 2024. Even worse, this pay gap widens as women climb the corporate ladder. According to Payscale, female managers and executives earn 83 cents on the dollar, but the share of female executives falls to 72 cents.
In most cases, this gap is due to women’s low starting salaries when they started their careers, often due to their hesitancy in negotiations, said Ruth Thomas, pay equity strategist at Payscale. Luck last month. “And they continue to carry that with them throughout their careers.”
While no one woman is, of course, responsible for bridging the generational gap between productivity and fair pay alone, there are some ways to level the playing field. Often, especially in tight labor markets, the best way for women to qualify for significant pay increases is to change jobs. Unfortunately, women tend to be much more company loyal than men.
“Employer loyalty backfires on women and actually worsens the pay gap,” Thomas said. Fortune Emma Burley. “Thus, women who are potentially more mobile, more willing to consider other employment opportunities, or who moved and are willing to move again during the Great Recession likely benefited from the wage inflation that occurred during that period.”
Bottom line: Moving from job to job is the best way to ensure consistent pay growth. This is what Olivia Colman would want you to do.