To think Claire Foy was not put below a man in her salary for the Crown.

[alittlebitofc]

Ok before I start this, let me know that I am aware men get paid more than women and it needs to stop. There needs to be equality however people are putting things out of context.

One that stuck out to me as not being 'unfair' was the Matt Smith and Claire Foy difference for the Crown in that he got paid more. Whilst I am a big fan of Foy thinking she is a brilliant actress I don't see why she'd be expected to get as much as him because he was a big name before The Crown and she wasn't.
It was Foy's 1st big role so why should she be paid the same as Matt Smith who had played 1 of the biggest roles on tv before it.? That's not how it works.

That is what the show said when it was disputed but I think they were right. It is, in the same way, I'd think that many of the men Meryl Streep or Kate Winslet have starred with over the years in films and had equal screen time yet were not as big as the actresses would not have got less and rightly so as Winslet and Streep are the bigger names.
I also think it is true when big actresses play a support role in a film against a lesser-known male who gets more screen time and this does happen-the actress gets more money and rightly so as she is a bigger name. At the end of the day, the bigger name-male or female can command more money and that's perfectly fair and how the industry works.

@CallMeMabel

Matt Smith wasn't a big star...and still isn't. They should have been paid the same. She was much better in it than he was, and was also brilliant in Wolf Hall.

I'd never heard of either of them and she was a much better actor than he, so YABU

Even if you want to argue that he had more fame when going into season 1, they continued the unfair pay gap in season 2. She had more than earned her place as his equal by that point. She was the star. Not him. And they still didnt pay her the same.

He has the sensationalist Doctor Who press behind him. People knew his name, even if they had never seen Doctor Who.
Foy had been in more critically acclaimed shows than him, and has more awards and was more accomplished. But her name was never headlined in the papers.

I could maybe, very maybe, forgive them for the season 1 pay gap. But not season 2. Not once she had proved she was the star, she was the main character and people loved her in it.

I knew her name more than his because I liked her shows more but I do understand the idea that his name was more well known. But they should have sorted out the pay for season 2.

It's weird that this is your hill to die on, OP..Out of all the issues going on in the world you choose this to create a whole thread on Mumsnet about. It seems very disingenuous to me.

🤔

YABU. Claire Foy had previously starred in Little Dorrit in the lead, and Wolf Hall as Anne Boleyn!

Also, she was the lead in The Crown; she literally played the central character that the whole show revolves around and was in the most scenes. Nobody else should’ve been paid more than her for that show until Olivia Colman took over. It’s misogyny, pure and simple.

I also think she was (and is) better respected than Matt Smith who was a particularly lacking-in-gravitas Dr Who and not a lot else AFAIK. I can't think of a good reason why he should have been paid more than she was.

@Arbitan

As noted above, an individual has the right to receive the same contractual pay and benefits than a person of the opposite sex in the same employment where the man and woman do like work, work rated as equivalent under an analytical job study, or work of equal value. Employers can justify difference in pay where there is a material factor that explains the difference in pay and conditions that is neither directly or indirectly discriminatory on the grounds of sex. That has been the case since 1970.

If you’re referring to the gender pay gap, that is far more complex and is not necessarily (or even usually) down to employers paying employees in breach of the equal pay legislation.

Also to summarise

The gender pay gap is the gap between the average pay of each gender. More male senior execs,more junior women = gender pay gap.

The equal pay gap is the gap between two similar employees of different genders.

However the former is most often quoted in the media and is somewhat disingenuous. Many companies improve their gender pay gap overnight by outsourcing lower paid cleaning/admin staff. There may be 3 women and 100 men but as long as the 3 women are highly paid between them there’s no ‘gender pay gap’.

I’m willing to bet the majority of people who watched it watched it because it was about the Royal Family, not because Matt Smith was in it. Arguably, she played the lead character - if it was a movie, she would have had equal, if not lead billing. She should have been paid the same or more.

Matt Smith was the bigger name - Doctor Who gave him far higher international recognition and therefore bargaining power, plus more exposure for the show. Doctor Who is a primetime family show and there is plenty of potential overlap with the audience for The Crown. Claire Foy will now be a much bigger name because of The Crown, but wasn't at the time.

Like the issue with John McEnroe and Martina Navratilova, with regards to the very real gender pay issues, this is the wrong hill to die on.

@JayAlfredPrufrock

To me she will always be Ann Boleyn as she turned her head just as the axe fell 😢

Sorry to go off the point, but OMG she was just brilliant in this scene.

Whispering her prayers, while her eyes darted about, and you could hear her short breathing; at one point Cromwell mutters to her to get her hands down from her hair (which of course she can’t hear) and the turning of the head is deliberate on the part of the French executioner - who steals the show for a bit - so he can get a clean cut.

As an aside there’s a tiny little gesture that’s really heartbreaking - when one of the ladies-in-waiting gently pats her head as they put the blindfold on her. So cleverly done. I love Claire Foy anyway!

She's great in Wolf Hall.

@Theunamedcat

He was also in terminator and other films

Was she strictly tv drama before or had she done film?

Was he???.

Why do you actually want to defend a gender pay gap here? What’s in it for you? Are you a man?

Smith had a supporting role as the embodiment of Skynet inTerminator Genisys(2015)

Hardly top Hollywood

@alittlebitofc

But other people have mentioned those and you don't seem to think they count so not sure what to say really

I have watched these though and still am aware that Doctor Who was still a much bigger hit by miles.

Using what criteria?

@alittlebitofc

You think Matt Smith was the pull? I'd say the Queen was the pull for the show, but ok

matt smith was a household name in the infancy of the show and that's always going to get attention from fans so yes he was a pull.

Many posters, myself included, knew Claire Foy, didn't know Matt Smith.

You seem to be conflating your own personal assessment of how well you knew the stars & their work, with some objective appraisal of their fame.

Claire Foye knocks the socks off Matt Smith in my book, before and after the Crown. She was mesmerising in Wolf Hall, absolutely unforgettable. That final scene

She should have been paid the same at least for the Crown - big name and fantastic credentials in the leading role. So I disagree OP.

Even if you were correct, you’re saying she should only get paid a wage based on what she’s done before this role, and not purely on the role she’s playing in the crown? It’s called The Crown, not The Husband of The Crown.
Anyway, did you recently start a thread about Minnie Driver…………….

Wolf Hall came out the same year as The Crown so it isn’t really relevant.

I agree it’s disingenuous to pretend that nobody had ever heard of Matt Smith. He had been nominated for BAFTAs for his role in Doctor Who. I’d never heard of Claire Foy before, it seems she’d been in a BBC mini series before the Crown and the odd few episodes of shows here and there. Not an international, BAFTA nominated role with millions of pounds of merchandise sold around the world bearing her face. There were tourist attractions, museums, magazines, DVDS bearing Matt Smith’s face for years before The Crown. He was clearly a much bigger pull and drew in a specific, international fan base.

Wolf Hall came out the same year as The Crown so it isn’t really relevant.

Wolf Hall aired in Jan 2015
The Crown started in November 2016

@TyrannysaurusXXrightshoarder I thought of the MD thread too!

Just to add to the Claire Foy love - I have on more than one occasion imitated her pronunciation of "Cromwell"

I agree it’s disingenuous to pretend that nobody had ever heard of Matt Smith

I agree with the poster who stated that if it were 2 women I was chatting about people would see my point. But we must bash matt smith here because he has a cock which is a cardinal sin on mn.

@alittlebitofc who is bashing Matt Smith because he has a cock?

Most posters have been fairly indifferent to him. One poster said he lacked gravitas as Dr Who- hardly bashing him just for being a man.

I don't think most people are saying they'd never heard of him either, are they? Most people have heard of him. I only know him for Dr Who which is a programme I really dislike and didn't he also go out with Lily James a few years ago? That's all I know about him.

This argument is particularly funny given Matt Smith is one of the least popular Drs ever

@CiaoForDiNiaoSaur I should have been clearer, Netflix commissioned and cast the Crown in 2014. Before Wolf Hall came out.