Olivia Colman is opening up about the pay disparity in Hollywood and says that she would make way more money if she were a man.
The Oscar winner was a guest on CNN’s The Amanpour Hour, where she talked to host Christiane Amanpour about the inequalities in pay she experienced in the film and TV industry.
“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,” the Oscar-winner star said. “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.”
When Amanpour asked if she had pay disparity despite her multiple accolades in the industry starring in films like The Favorite, Accused and Broadchurch, as well as television shows like The Crown and Hearstopper.
“I’m very aware that if I was Oliver Colman, I’d be earning a f*** of a lot more than I am,” she said. “I know of one pay disparity, which is a 12,000% difference.”
Watch Colman’s reaction to pay disparity in the video below.
Colman is the latest Hollywood star to call out the inequalities in wages. Taraji P. Henson has been raising her voice against the industry not valuing Black actresses.
While promoting The Color Purple, the star revealed that she almost quit the industry because she was being underpaid for her work.
“I’m just tired of working so hard, being gracious at what I do, getting paid a fraction of the cost,” Henson said during an appearance on Gayle King’s SiriusXM show on December 2023. “I’m tired of hearing my sisters say the same thing over and over. You get tired. I hear people go, ‘You work a lot.’ I have to. The math ain’t math-ing. And you start working a lot, you have a team. Big bills come with what we do. We don’t do this alone. It’s a whole team behind us. They have to get paid.”
