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.

Isn't Dwayne Johnson the highest paid actor in the world?

I thought it was Mark Wahlberg. Either way, neither are great actors.

Oh yes, it was Dwayne Johnson in 2016 and he's been overtaken in 2017 by Mark Wahlberg. As you said, neither of them are the worlds best actors.

I get the point that Matt Smith was better known (I had heard of Claire Foy because I'd watched Wolf Hall, didn't rate her really) so he could command a higher salary.

But isn't this ALWAYS how men get paid more - because subjective judgments are made about their ability/marketability/etc? If you have two people doing the same job they should be paid the same. It doesn't matter where they've come from or how much they've earned in the past. If they are doing the same job they get the same money.

The public sector makes it easier to pay equally because it has set pay scales (though you can still manipulate where someone is in the pay scale, but at least there is a range). As soon as you lose transparency and have individuals negotiating, you lose equality.

People go on about the gender pay gap but for me, equal pay for equal work is still a huge issue decades after we got an Equal Pay Act.

itstime How would "same job, same money" possibly work in showbiz? Would it be paid by line? In this episode, Matt Smith had 500 lines and Claire Foy 440, so he gets paid more? But he was required on set for 2 days as all his lines were in just three scenes, whereas she was needed on 4 days, so she gets paid more? In Tuesday's scene, Matt just had to stand and react whereas Claire was involved in an heated argument with the actress playing Princess Margaret. Does the latter require "more acting" and therefore she should be paid more for that day?

But isn't this ALWAYS how men get paid more - because subjective judgments are made about their ability/marketability/etc?*
Oh right so some on fresh out of uni should be paid the same as some one with 20 years experience?

Then whats the point of Cvs experience, gaining knowkedge, career orogression then?

Worth noting, just for the record, that equal pay HAS been known in showbiz. In season 1 of Friends all six leads got the same salary. In season 2, Aniston and Schwimmer got more because of the popularity and storylines of their characters. For season 3 onwards, they all got the same fee as they all agreed to negotiate salary collectively to ensure they were all treated equally. This meant that Aniston and Schwimmer actually took a pay cut for season 3.

It's bullshit and male actors need to start refusing to work when their female leads/co-stars are being paid less than them.

It's not like any of them are going to go hungry, right?

Also worth noting that the highest paid TV actor in the world in the late-80s and early-90s was female. And eventually went on to executive produce and call the shots on the show too and, in effect, become the most powerful woman in TV during that time.

subjective judgments

But it's not always subjective. You can look at viewers for previous things that the actors have done, and how much money they've made for the production company. Dr Who fans spent millions buying mugs. t-shirts and other merchandise with Matt Smith's face on. The same cannot be said for Claire Foy's previous work.

In Hollywood, they look at box office takings. If Netflix suddenly decided that Dwayne Johnson would be ideal for Prince Andrew and that Reece Witherspoon is the perfect Princess Diana, there would be complex negotiations based on their past box office earnings for the companies concerned. A few flops and your value decreases. Someone like Olivia Colman is a huge star in the UK but not in the US so her value is less.

I know some on MN love to blame everything on "the patriarchy" but often it's simple economics of demand and supply.

"It doesn't matter where they've come from or how much they've earned in the past."

Nonsense. Come from Oxbridge or RADA or an impressive company then you're in a better position to be paid more as you're likely a better employee.

"If they are doing the same job they get the same money."

Yes, but as jobs and responsibilities get more complicated, so does the ability to compare them.

"The public sector makes it easier to pay equally because it has set pay scales"

Yes. And the public sector is fucked. Wasteful and, well, fucked. Full of tossers earning more than they should be because they have incremental pay rises for time worked when half of them should be kicked out on their arse.

"But isn't this ALWAYS how men get paid more"

Except it isn't.

On the lower rungs of graduate employment, women earn more than men. They're more likely to have a better job and more likely to get promotions.

Then something happens around the age of 30. Women ... ah, can't for the life of me remember the reason for so many women no pursuing their careers less vehemently after this kind of age ...

I don't subscribe to this argument that it's fair for MS, as a bigger star, to get paid more than CF who was the lead. Because after a lot of thought and a bit of Googling I cannot find an example where a bigger female star in fewer scenes was paid more than a lower profile lead actor.
Given that even when top actresses have equal billing with actors they are paid less, time and time again, I do not think this situation with the Crown is a surprise, unfortunately.
I tell you what, though - a lot of actresses need to get new agents.

Somerville I suspect Judi Dench was paid more than Toby Stephens or Rosamund Pike for the Bond film Die Another Day despite being in it for fewer scenes.

Normally for tv and movies you are signed up for 2 or 3 movies etc and your wage is agreed then. I can understand initially why he was paid more as he was a very famous TV actor and probably a bigger draw for the show. It's good to see now though the "queen" will be paid the highest wage.

YANBU - he might have been well known BUT I doubt the positions would have been reversed if it was a man in the lead. Pretty sure he still would have had the higher salary over a between known female support. And saying Meryl Streep, judo dench etc. Would have been paid more in support role than a male lead isn’t helping because Matt isn’t and multinoscar winning veteran actor no matter how good he is.

green I was responding specifically to Somerville's suggestion that they couldn't find an example where a bigger female star in fewer scenes was paid more than a lower profile lead actor.

twiblue.com/PamelaPaulNYT/tweet/970663779368361984

Slight tangent, but someone above mentioned number of words spoken - this link shows a chart setting out the proportion of words spoken by men -v- women in best selling films (the men have lots more words!). Quite interesting. Hope the link works.

Carefully It is, but you also have to take into account the specific nature of a lot of those films. For example, Spotlight - the majority of characters were male so this is inevitable, not just because it was written that way but because it is telling a genuine story, with actors portraying the real characters and in that small news team, there was only one female reporter, and they were investigating the abuse of children by Catholic priests (who are clearly also going to be male). Similar things can be said about many of those films, but obviously not all.

How much did Daniel Radcliffe get paid for a lead role, compared to Maggie Smith for a more minor character? Very difficult to compare like for like when it comes to acting.

ShatnersWig - Spotlight isn’t a good example because there were actually MANY women on the investigation team uncovering the abuse but for the sake of telling the story more succinctly they cut down on the number of journalists in the movie actually involved...

Spotlight also chose to ignore the abuse of girls by priests - again, to focus in the story

I don’t know about anyone else but i’m Getting a little tired of white men making movies featuring stories about white men or boys featuring more men. I think that’s why the Queen, slightly cheesy though it is has done so well. Plus the amazing Clare Foy. I doubt the slightly hammy Prince Philip as played by Matt Smith would have made t the hit it was without her

Because after a lot of thought and a bit of Googling I cannot find an example where a bigger female star in fewer scenes was paid more than a lower profile lead actor.

Scarlet Johansson in the Avengers:

www.quora.com/How-much-did-each-actor-get-paid-to-star-in-The-Avengers

The only one paid more than her is Robert Downey Jr, and Samuel L. Jackson was paid the same.

green Apologies, you're right, been a while since I'd seen it but I meant it more of a generic example that you can't automatically assume patriarchy of film making when a film is based on real events rather than fiction (Braveheart of course is quite heavily fictionalised in places but would inevitably be very very heavily weighted towards a male cast because of the subject matter, the time it is portraying etc; Titanic would be another).

I thought Claire Foy was mesmerising in the crown, it's a shame but I can understand that when it comes to money it's all about who is considered the biggest draw.

Oh I think we can assume the patriarchy quite honestly! When I see a film set in the 50s or 60s or whenever, that shows mostly men I think where the f@ck are all the women?? Where they not 50% of the population back then? Why is that factory scene just all men when I know there were women working in factories like my grandma and all her friends did? Why’s that scene on the farm only got men in it? Where the actual f@ck is the wife who worked just as hard as the husband to run the farm ( because in RL that’s what happens) where are the daughters?