That Claire Foy has been paid less than Matt Smith

[Rollonweekend]

This is disgraceful. She was the main actress and yet Matt was paid more?? I'm stunned.

and hopefully as a result of the publicity, they will rectify that

They've said this is the last time the actress playing the Queen won't be the highest paid. But I find this hard to believe as the lady cast as QEII in series 3 is unheard of in the US (Olivia Coleman, Broadchurch) and they are talking Helena Bonham Carter for Princess Margaret, Paul Bettany for Philip and Brie Larson/Emilia Clarke for Camilla and Sophie Turner for Diana? I can't see how they can justifying paying her more when she won't be the one drawing people to the show.

Yes I was wondering whether they would pay Helena Bonham Carter the same as Olivia Coleman. They are also talking about High Lawrie for Philip and he's a huge US draw. That said, Claire Foy was paid £400k an episode while still being paid less than Smith so none of them will be struggling to pay the bills and may well do it for the status and publicity alone.

arguably he was still the better actor of the two.

More than that, his character was more interesting. As was Princess Margaret's. Arguably, Claire Foy's character was the least interesting in the entire series.

Thinking it as well, surely John Lithgow made more than Matt Smith as Winston Churchill in Season 1?

isnt Hugh Laurie to play Prince Philip?

I dont think you can say Claire Foy was less interesting? perhaps they know or rather imagine less - didnt want to rock the boat as regards the queen, we dont mind a bit of gossip about philip but gossip about the queen might not have taken off so well

isnt Hugh Laurie to play Prince Philip?

Sorry, yes he's the front runner, I was reading an old article. Either way, he's House, way more famous in the US than Olivia Coleman.

Yes the characters of Philip and Margaret were also arguably less well known, so presumably required a lot more research to play. It has also proved to be a much more difficult part to cast. I could think of loads of brilliant actresses who could play the Queen off the top of my head and they seem to have cast The Queen and Margaret fairly easily, but seem to be struggling with Philip. Maybe that was the case with series 1 so it's supply and demand too.

I dont think philip and margaret were less well known

Obviously they are not less well known as of themselves but the Queen is the Head of State. She has been written about much more. The other two are known by their relationship to her. The actors had to pad them out as characters in their own right. Having said that, I bet Vanessa Kirby could only dream of being paid as much as the leads. I agree John Lithgow must have been paid more.

www.vogue.com/article/monique-wanda-sykes-accuse-netflix-racial-gender-pay-gap
Netflix is a bit of a dick.
Wanda Sykes is amazing and deserves a fortune.
I do think it's about gender politics.

He's in in almost as much as she is.

I had never heard of Claire Foy before she starred in The Crown, I had heard of Matt Smith.

It's easy to jump to the conclusion that she's being paid less because she's a woman, but I think there's more to it than that.

when I heard about this I just made the link that he was more experienced with a higher profile not that it was because he was male.

I don't see sexism everywhere I look though which seems to be the norm these days

Not being Dr Who fan I knew more of Claire Foy personally from Little Dorrit and the Upstairs Downstairs remake....but he was generally higher profile when it was launched so i understand why

I'm surprised because my own skewed view on it is that Matt Smith was in a blockbuster show after I'd stopped watching it and appeared not that interesting an actor ( compared with previous doctors for example!)

Claire Foy had done the previously impossible and created an Anne Boleyn I could totally believe in who had me crying buckets at her execution.

She needs to get a better agent then. It’s the agents that negotiate fees.

Netflix said right from the start that The Crown would be 6 series, exploring different eras of the Queen's reign. So the first two were from 1953 finishing with the birth of Prince Edward in about 1964. Next two series will be later, starting mid-70s and covering marriages of the children, Thatcher etc. They also said that the cast would be changing with each series - different lead actors for different stages in their lives.

If Hugh Laurie is to play the DofE then I would expect he would be paid a LOT more than Olivia Colman as he is a household name in the US and she's not, however fabulous her acting might be.

Its not about who people like more. Its about work experience. Claire is fabulous but she had non lead parts in some TV series. He was a lead in a show that is very difficult to lead because there are only two or 3 core cast members and the rest is a constantly changing cast and set every 3-4 weeks. He was also the lead in a show that went global while he was in the tenure. As someone has said in another thread on the same subject, the issue is possibly that he has more experience as a lead because there are more good male lead roles than female.

Acting is different from normal salaries work. This would all have been negotiated via their agents and they obviously saw this as a good deal for her.

Claire Foy had done the previously impossible and created an Anne Boleyn I could totally believe in who had me crying buckets at her execution.
Same here. Anyone who’d seen her in Wolf Hall, including the people at Netflix, would know she was worth as much as Smith.

She needs to get a better agent then. It’s the agents that negotiate fees.

No, that excuse was given by the BBC for shafting many many women. Its the employer who knows what everyone else is earning and is the one who has to pay the sexes equally.

Lizzie:
It was a performance I will always remember. It topped Mark Rylance for me, though he was at the heart of the series and did a fantastic job.

I agree, she’s just mesmerising when she’s on screen. I’ve watched Wolf Hall twice and cried each time at the execution scene.

I want to watch it again now!

Anyone who’d seen her in Wolf Hall, including the people at Netflix, would know she was worth as much as Smith.

It's not JUST about a performance, though. It's about name recognition to pull in the viewers. That's why the big stars get the big bucks - because their NAME and popularity has the power to potentially drag in the big audience and the big bucks. Far more people worldwide watched Dr Who than Wolf Hall, so more people would have considered watching The Crown for Matt Smith being in it than Claire Foy.

Acting is not the same as one man and one woman in an office both doing the same job, it really isn't. You really think if someone is staging a two-hander play and one of the roles is played by Maggie Smith and the other by someone fresh out of drama school they're gonna be paid the same? Get real.

You'll now find that as a result of the success of The Crown, Claire Foy can now up her rate considerably for her next project.

Anyone who’d seen her in Wolf Hall

As ShatnersWig says, that would be considerably fewer people than those who saw Matt Smith in Dr Who.

It's not about how "good" someone is. It's about their profile and things they've been in before. Which is why people like Johnny Depp who isn't exactly Shakespeare material commands millions per movie because he gets bums on seats.

Had Netflix chosen two lead actors who nobody had ever heard of they would have had to work a lot harder to make the series a hit. Especially in the US with a predominantly British cast.

Yes Isn't Dwayne Johnson the highest paid actor in the world? There are a million actors more talented than him that Ive seen in local theatre, but he's likeable and a load of kids and teenagers will flock to the cinema to watch him. I know a lot of Doctor Who fans watched The Crown for Matt Smith even though it wasn't naturally their thing. I'd imagine the Wolf Hall audience would have watched The Crown anyway.